Nintendo dominates home country
Strong performances from 3DS software and hardware saw the Japanese games market grow for the first time in two years. Between 26th December and 24th June, the Japanese market was worth 193.4 billion Yen, a 0.07% increase from 191.98bn over the same period last year. 63% of that figure came from software sales, up from 112.17bn to 122.67bn, while hardware revenues dropped from 79.81 to 70.73bn. Nintendo ran the show on hardware and software. 3DS sold 2.22m units over the six months, bringing its lifetime sales in the country to 6.36m. Wii sold 265k to reach 12.43m, and DS chipped in with 20,239 sales and now stands at 32.86m. Titles on Nintendo formats took four of the top five software slots, with Pokémon Black and White 2 topping the chart with double the sales of the second place title. The most impressive part? The Pokémon game was only released the day before tracking ended, a very smart (or perhaps just coincidental) move from Nintendo, Game Freak and the Pokémon company. Here's the Japanese hardware and software charts from 26th December to 24th June. Life-to-date sales are in parentheses:- Nintendo 3DS: 2,219,548 (total 6,355,287)
- PlayStation 3: 695,465 (total 8,112,613)
- PlayStation Portable: 500,333 (total 18,737,441)
- PlayStation Vita: 353,657 (total 756,451)
- Nintendo Wii: 265,578 (total 12,433,321)
- Xbox 360: 33,809 (total 1,554,547)
- Nintendo DS: 20,239 (total 32,855,741)
2. One Piece Pirate Warriors (PS3, Namco Bandai, 1st March 2012 2012): 806,578
3. Dragon Quest Monsters Terry's Wonderland 3D (3DS, Square Enix, 31st March 2012): 743,967
4. Mario Kart 7 (3DS, Nintendo, 1st December 2011): 665,573 (total 1,747,964)
5. Monster Hunter 3 G (3DS, Capcom, 10th December 2011): 665,394 (1,474,716)
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