This Week In Sales: Anarchy Reigns In The Midst Of An Etrian Odyssey

Period: The week of July 2nd – July 8th (2012)

Top-seller: Pokémon Black/White 2 – 184,648

Nintendo 3DS sales: 52,421 | Total sales: 6,471,409

PlayStation Vita sales: 13,758 | Total sales: 818,497

<< Last week’s software sales chart

Last week’s biggest release in Japan was Etrian Odyssey IV, the latest in Atlus’ Wizardry-inspired dungeon-crawling series. Released for the Nintendo 3DS, Etrian Odyssey IV sold 95,506 copies in its first week, making this the game with the highest opening sales in the entire series. Here’s a look at the opening sales of the previous games for comparison:

(2007) Etrian Odyssey – 32,511

(2008) Etrian Odyssey II – 68,913

(2010) Etrian Odyssey III – 87,765

There could be several reasons as to why Etrian Odyssey IV showed higher first-week sales. For starters, the game has been made more accessible to the average player with a casual mode. Atlus also released a demo for the game on the Nintendo eShop, which could have been a catalyst for the improved sales as well.

Another game that did well (within reasonable limits) was The Little Battlers: Explosive Boost. Considering that this is the third version of the first Little Battlers game, 54,000 copies sold in its first week is quite the feat and implies that Level 5 had the right idea expanding the series to the 3DS.

At this rate, there’s little doubt that The Little Battlers W, the upcoming second game in the series, will make its way to the Nintendo 3DS at some point, too. That’s where the audience for games aimed at school kids is going to be in the future, owing to titles like Monster Hunter, Dragon Quest, Inazuma Eleven, and Nintendo’s own franchises.

Last week also saw the release of Anarchy Reigns in Japan. Unfortunately, that game was released with little fanfare, and was narrowly outsold by Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Anarchy Reigns sold 22,000 copies, while Ghost Recon sold 23,300 (both on PlayStation 3). Ghost Recon also sold an additional 6,500 copies on the Xbox 360.

On the hardware front, Nintendo 3DS sales took a dip from the week prior, possibly owing to the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS XL, which might have made some people want to wait for the larger model. PlayStation Vita sales, temporarily boosted by the Crystal White Vita model, also dropped.

The top-20 software sales chart for the week is as follows:

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer, Media Create and Geimin.net.