This Week In Sales: The Snack World Makes A Tasty Debut

Period: The week of August 7 – August 13 (2017)

Top-seller: Dragon Quest XI – 116,615 (Nintendo 3DS)

Nintendo Switch sales: 87,798 (Last week – 61,933)

Nintendo 2DS sales: 3,527 (3,740)

New Nintendo 2DS LL sales: 24,187 (33,871)

New Nintendo 3DS sales: 740 (1,078)

New Nintendo 3DS LL sales: 17,276 (22,200)

Wii U sales: 132 (158)

PlayStation 4 sales: 34,691 (43,862)

PlayStation 4 Pro sales: 7,771 (9,077)

PlayStation 3 sales: 95 (96)

PlayStation Vita sales: 4,651 (4,967)

Xbox One sales: 75 (94)

<< Last week’s software sales chart

<< How to read and understand sales

Last week, Japan saw Level-5’s big release of The Snack World on 3DS after its announcement in April 2015 and going through a couple delays, and it did pretty well for a debut for a new title aimed for children. New releases also include Hitman: The Complete First Season and Mega Man Legacy Collection 2. Japanese sales tracker Media Create shared the latest on software and hardware sales data from the week of August 7 through August 13, 2017.

At #1 of the week is Dragon Quest XI on Nintendo 3DS, which has been at the top spot for a third week straight with 116,615 units sold and a LTD of 1,573,216. The PlayStation 4 version slipped to #3 with 91,147 units sold in the week and a total of 1,242,260. Between both version, Dragon Quest XI has sold a total of 2,815,476 physical units in Japan between both versions.

The title that snuck into the #2 spot was none other than Level-5’s fourth major mixed-media project, The Snack World, on Nintendo 3DS which debuted with a rather impressive 97,534 units. Not only is that pretty good for a new IP, but it out-sold the debuts of other major franchises aimed towards children.

Here’s a look at how it stacks against other kid-centric titles:

• (2002) Mega Man Battle Network 3 – 73,000 [GBA]
• (2003) Mega Man Battle Network 4 – 238,200 [GBA]
• (2008) Inazuma Eleven – 41,474 [NDS]
• (2009) Inazuma Eleven 2 – 280,597 [NDS]
• (2013) Yo-kai Watch – 53,654 [3DS]
• (2014) Yo-kai Watch 2 – 1,316,706
• (2016) Monster Hunter Stories – 140,603 [3DS]
• (2017) The Snack World – 97,534 [3DS]

As you can see, franchises aimed towards children always start out slow in Japan. Not counting Monster Hunter Stories which already had an established franchise, The Snack World has one of the strongest starts for a kids-centric title. While it likely won’t surpass the huge jump we saw with Yo-kai Watch 2 that followed after the franchise’s boom, it should be interesting to see how sales of The Snack World hold up over time. It should also be noted that Level-5 games tend to sell rather well over extended periods of time, as we’ve seen in the past with Yo-kai Watch, Fantasy Life, and other titles.

[Thanks to our good friend Ishaan for providing the chart and numbers. Hit him up on Twitter @ishaansahdev to talk about video game sales, comics, and all-things Monster Hunter.]

As for the other new titles, Hitman: The Complete First Season kicked off at #6 with 17,252 units sold on PS4. Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 also debuted with 8,537 units sold on PS4.

Hardware sales are starting to go back to normal after the spike we saw with the release of Dragon Quest XI, but the Switch saw an increase of over 25,000 from last week with a total of 87,798 units sold in the week, suggesting that there’s been an increase in stock with its demand still as high as ever in Japan. Going by Media Create’s numbers the Nintendo Switch has sold 1,435,030 units in Japan since its launch in March.

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

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer and Media Create.