A Closer Look At Harvest Moon’s Growing Sales In Recent Years

Last week, Marvelous AQL released Harvest Moon: Connect to a New Land on the Nintendo 3DS, and the game sold 130,782 copies in its first week, marking the best debut of any Harvest Moon game to date, according to sales tracker Media Create.

Media Create also report that the game sold through 73.07% of its shipment, which is a solid sell-through figure. One hopes that Marvelous will be able to keep up with demand, as a number of Nintendo 3DS games have suffered from retail shortages in the past.

Additionally, Media Create also provide some projections for the game’s long-term sales. 2010’s Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns sold 63,610 copies at launch, and went on to sell 253,000 copies in the long run. Meanwhile, 2012’s Harvest Moon: A New Beginning (3DS) sold 81,131 copies at launch, and went on to sell 280,000 copies.

The trend indicates that, thus far, accumulated sales of Harvest Moon games end up being around 200,000 copies in addition to launch sales. If the trend holds up, Harvest Moon: Connect to a New Land could cross 300,000 copies in sales.

Below is a chart that compares launch sales of the Harvest Moon games in Japan since 2005. As you can see, both the Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games have seen steady growth in the last few years.