This Week In Sales: Sword Art Online Meets World of Final Fantasy

Period: The week of October 24th –  October 30th (2016)

Top-seller: Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization – 70,871 (PS4)

Nintendo 3DS sales: 244

Nintendo 3DS LL sales: 72

Nintendo 2DS – 7,103

New Nintendo 3DS sales: 3,090

New Nintendo 3DS LL sales: 15,151

PlayStation Vita sales: 10,392

Wii U sales: 1,898

PlayStation 4 sales: 30,375

PlayStation 3 sales: 610

Xbox One sales: 355

<< Last week’s software sales chart

<< How to read and understand sales

Last week, Japan saw quite the busy with with a majority of new titles in the top-20, something we haven’t seen in quite a bit. Debuting titles of the week include Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, World of Final Fantasy, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk, Titanfall 2, and more. Here’s the latest from Japanese sales tracker Media Create’s latest data on video game software and hardware that sold from the week of October 24 through October 30, 2016.

#1 and #2 of the week went to Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, which sold 70,871 copies on PlayStation 4 and 69,648 on PlayStation Vita for a total of 140,519 units sold in its debut between the two.

Here’s a look at how it stacks compared to other Sword Art Online games as of late:

• (2013) Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment – 138,180 (PSP)
• (2014) Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment – 145,029 (PS Vita)
• (2015) Sword Art Online: Lost Song – 139,298 (PS Vita)
• (2016) Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization 140,519 (70,871 PS4|69,458 PSV)

Even though the game released on two platforms this time around, the numbers stayed about the same as we’ve seen from previous Sword Art Online games, which comes to show that fans of the series have remained loyal with the latest release.

Next up, we have World of Final Fantasy at #3 and #4 with 53,176 copies sold on PS4 and 47,159 on PS Vita for a combined total of 100,335 copies between the two versions. Before writing it off as a flop for not having sold as much as we’ve seen from other Final Fantasy games on home console, keep in mind that Square Enix has stated they aimed to reach out to a new audience with World of Final Fantasy. The game features a new take on Final Fantasy with cute chibi-fied characters as a way to introduce some of the popular characters to a new generation of players as well as those who’ve yet to play a Final Fantasy game.

While it might not necessarily be a game that’s reaching out exclusively to children, I think we can look at it in a similar light to that of Monster Hunter Stories, as both titles were made in attempts to expand on their audience. In any case, given the tremendous amount of marketing we saw in Japan for World of Final Fantasy, I’m sure Square Enix still would’ve liked to have seen a bit more than the 100,000 copies it sold.

Other new titles include Berserk and the Band of the Hawk at #6 and #12 with 28,169 copies sold on PS4 and 10,091 on PS Vita for a total of 38,260 copies between the two versions. Titanfall 2 debuted at #7 with 21,443 copies sold on PS4. Following we have My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Too! at #8 with 19,269 units sold on PS Vita for its debut, Mafia III at #9 with 15,838 copies sold on PS4, Crows: Burning Edge at #13 with 9,574 copies sold on PS4, River City Ransom SP at #14 with 6,268 copies sold on 3DS, and Neo Atlas 1469 at #16 with 4,969 copies sold on PS Vita.

On the hardware front, we didn’t see too much of a difference other than a slight increase in PS4, PS Vita, and New 3DS sales figures. The Xbox One also came back down to Earth going from 752 units sold the week prior to 335 units this past week.

The top-20 chart for the week was as follows:

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer and Media Create.