This Week In Sales: Kirby Makes His Best Japanese Debut In A Dededecade

Period: The week of March 12 – March 18 (2018)

Top-seller: Kirby: Star Allies – 222,031 (Nintendo Switch)

Nintendo Switch sales: 54,342 (Last week – 45,084)

Nintendo 2DS sales: 547 (761)

New Nintendo 2DS LL sales: 4,937 (5,413)

New Nintendo 3DS LL sales: 3,664 (4,074)

PlayStation 4 sales: 14,349 (14,251)

PlayStation 4 Pro sales: 8,278 (14,112)

PlayStation Vita sales: 3,644 (5,476)

Xbox One sales: 80 (104)

Xbox One X sales: 74 (78)

<< Last week’s software sales chart

<< How to read and understand sale

Last week, Japan had a busy one full of new releases with 11 spots of the top-20 chart being new debuts including Kirby: Star Allies, Attack on Titan 2, Winning Post 8 2018, Gal Gun 2, and The Silver 2425. Japanese sales tracker Media Create released the latest video game software and hardware sales data from the week of March 12 through March 18, 2018.

The #1 spot of the week goes to none other than Kirby: Star Allies which sold a whopping 222,031 units in its impressive Japanese debut. That’s the best Kirby game debut in Japan in almost 10 years, with the last title to achieve that much being Kirby: Super Star Ultra which released in September 2008 for Nintendo DS with a debut of 265,654 units in Japan.

To get a better idea on how it stacks against past Kirby titles, here are the first-week and life-to-date sales figures for the series from Media Create, dating back to 2004:

• (2004) Kirby & the Amazing Mirror [GBA]– 188,837 | 736,226
• (2005) Kirby: Canvas Curse [DS] – 75,365 | 310,251
• (2006) Kirby: Squeak Squad [DS] – 166,131 | 1,144,490
• (2008) Kirby: Super Star Ultra [DS] – 265,654 | 1,185,022
• (2010) Kirby’s Epic Yarn [Wii] – 92,289 | 454,930
• (2011) Kirby Mass Attack [DS] – 74,915 | 417,464
• (2011) Kirby’s Return to Dream Land [Wii] – 136,811 | 835,391
• (2012) Kirby’s Dream Collection [Wii] – 100,286 | 268,275
• (2014) Kirby: Triple Deluxe [3DS] – 214,208 | 816,903
• (2015) Kirby and the Rainbow Curse [Wii U] – 32,137 | 104,800
• (2016) Kirby: Planet Robobot [3DS] – 144,846 | 517,001
• (2017) Kirby: Battle Royale [3DS] – 28,023 | N/A
• (2018) Kirby: Star Allies [Switch] – 222,031 | New

At #2 we have Splatoon 2 with 30,471 units sold in the week with no signs of slowing down, especially with the Octo Expansion and more DLC arriving this summer.

#3, #4, and #8 of the week went to Attack on Titan 2, which sold 28,480 units on PS4, 22,941 units on Nintendo Switch, and 15,261 units on PlayStation Vita for a total of 66,682 units between the three. That’s a pretty big drop from the previous entry which sold 150,682 units in its debut (62,111 on PS Vita, 61,156 on PS4, 27,415 on PS3).

At #5 we have last week’s top title Hokuto ga Gotoku with 20,448 units sold on PlayStation 4 on its second week.

As far as other new titles go, we have Winning Post 8 2018 at #11 with 8,459 units sold on PS4, 3,837 units sold on PS Vita, and 3,745 units sold on Switch for a total of 16,041 units in its debut.

Devil May Cry HD Collection opened at #13 with 6,280 units sold on PS4, Future Card Buddyfight – Tanjou! Ore Tachi no Saikyou Body! at #15 with 5,362 units sold on 3DS, Gal Gun 2 at #16 with a low 3,892 units sold on PS4, and lastly The Silver 2425 at #20 with 3,550 units sold on PS4.

The PlayStation 4 sold 14,349 units and the PlayStation 4 Pro sold 8,278 units for a combined total of 22,627 units between the two Sony home consoles. The top-selling hardware of the week was once again the Nintendo Switch with 60.4% of all consoles sold in the week with 54,342 units. Going by Media Create’s data, the Nintendo Switch has now sold 3,901,059 units since its launch in March 3, 2017.

The top-20 chart of the week is as follows:

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer and Media Create.