Monster Hunter 4 continues to dominate the Media Create sales charts, with this week’s sales alone outnumbering eight new releases in the top 10 and twelve overall new releases by a wide margin.
As we know, Monster Hunter 4’s launch was one of the biggest for any game in Japan, propelling 3DS sales as well to the point that it has now outsold the Wii in the country. This week, it still managed to garner 213,278 unit sales.
Other games on the top 10 are Armored Core: Verdict Day, at Number 5 with 59,184 units sold, Warriors Orochi 3: Ultimate, for both the PS3 and Vita, hitting Number 3 and 8 respectively, and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD, with 30,264 units sold at Number 7.
This may surprise younger fans, but Wind Waker was poorly received in Japan in its original release. I know some may argue that it fared little better elsewhere, but as Aonuma attests, it actually performed so badly in it country of origin that it threatened the end of the Zelda franchise. In this sense, this debut is actually not that bad, although it does little to help its console’s fortunes.
In turn, Armored Core: Verdict Day and Warriors Orochi 3: Ultimate are themselves new versions of older games. The mech FPS and hack and slash brawler have not fared well in reviews, but clearly continue to have huge followings in Japan, as do many of the other Japan-exclusive games that debuted this week.
Very little has changed when it comes to hardware sales across the board. 3DS supremely sold another 134,244 units this week, while the Wii U, Vita and PS3 saw little change in sales numbers from the week before in spite of a scattering of new games.
