Interest

Japanese Video Game Market Down 8% in 2011

The Japanese publisher Enterbrain announced the final data for last year's Japanese video game market on Thursday. The data covers video games sales in Japan from December 27, 2010 to December 25, 2011.

The total market for both hardware and software was 454.38 billion yen (about US$5.8865 billion) — 92 percent of last year's sales. The market for software sales totaled 274.64 billion yen (about US$3.5579 billion), down 13.7 percent from the year before. Enterbrain's Famitsu cited a lack of popular game releases such as 2010's Pokémon Black, Pokémon White, and Monster Hunter Portable 3rd for the decrease.

During 2011, the market for hardware sales totaled 179.74 billion yen (US$2.3285 billion), up 2.4 percent from 2010. Famitsu noted that the releases of the Nintendo 3DS and Sony's PlayStation Vita portable platforms may account for the increase. The Nintendo 3DS was Japan's best-selling game hardware device in 2011 with 4.1357 units sold during the period. The PlayStation Vita ranked fourth behind the Nintendo DS and PSP with 402,794 units sold from its December 17 release to December 25.

Enterbrain revealed that Japan's ten top-selling games in 2011 were:

• Mario Kart 7 on the Nintendo 3DS - 1,082,391 units sold
• Super Mario 3D Land on the Nintendo 3DS - 1,042,511 units sold
• Monster Hunter Portable 3rd on the PSP - 1,021,457 units sold (cumulative total 4,502,446)
• Monster Hunter 3 (tri-) G on the Nintendo 3DS - 809,322 units sold
• Final Fantasy XIII-2 on the PS3, Xbox 360 - 697,146 units sold
• Final Fantasy Type-0 on the PSP - 696,428 units sold
• Rhythm Heaven Fever on the Wii - 633,429 units sold
• Tales of Xillia on the PS3 - 632,151 units sold
• Wii Sports Resort on the Wii - 612,807 units sold (cumulative total 2,732,655)
• Wii Party on the Wii - 584,545 units sold (cumulative total 2,123,773)

The publisher reported in June that the Japanese game market was down 16 percent during the period between December 27, 2010 and June 26, 2011. The total market for both hardware and software was 191.98 billion yen (about US$2.3875 billion) — 84 percent of the total in the same period in 2010. In the first half of 2011, hardware sales were down 8.8 percent from the same time the previous year, and the market for software sales decreased 20.4 percent.

Source: Famitsu