Black Ops 2 is Popular in Japan, Outsells Almost Every Other Game

The Call of Duty series is surprisingly popular in Japan. Where typically Western games don't make as much of an impact as local titles from Japanese developers, the Call of Duty franchise has managed to make a significant dent on the market by pushing hundreds of thousands of copies upon its release. 

Many other publishers, including Bethesda, have attempted to lay claim to the Japanese market by marketing their products (such as Skyrim) heavily upon the Japanese audience, which has thus far proved relatively impenetrable to anything from the outside. Call of Duty has been the odd man out, in that it has a good-sized following of Japanese players who've enjoyed the series on just about every platform it's been released on, including the PC.

It's more or less impossible to track the sale of PC copies of the game given that it's all done mostly through Steam, but thankfully the sales stats in retail are pretty easy to track. 

According to Media Create, Treyarch's latest game Black Ops 2 has managed to push 197,350 units on the PS3 and 22,177 on the Xbox 360. It's clear that the PS3 is a lot more popular than the X360 in Japan—but what's more impressive is the fact that the game sold enough copies to land itself the number 2 spot on the sales list.

It managed to beat the bew Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon title, which was released in the same week. It's only trailing slightly behind the new Animal Crossing: New Leaf in terms of sales during the week, which has sold over 1.1 million copies thus far.

Here's the full list of games during the week of 11/22 (via Gematsu):

1. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo, 11/08/12) – 213,414 (1,106,758)

2. [PS3] Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Square Enix, 11/22/12) – 197,350 (New)

3. [3DS] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Magna Gate and the Infinity Labyrinth (Pokemon, 11/22/12) – 121,480 (New)

4. [PS3] Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational (SCEJ, 11/22/12) – 100,862 (New)

5. [3DS] New Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo, 07/28/12) – 34,971 (1,420,184)

6. [360] Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Square Enix, 11/22/12) – 22,177 (New)

7. [3DS] E.X. Troopers (Capcom, 11/22/12) – 17,402 (New)

8. [PS3] Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft, 11/15/12) -16,379 (88,883)

9. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Best Price!) (Capcom, 12/10/11) – 11,369 (24,604)

10. [3DS] Grandpa Danger Jya 1000-nin no Otomodachi Yokoshima (Namco Bandai, 11/22/12) – 10,452 (New)

11. [PS3] E.X. Troopers (Capcom, 11/22/12) – 8,717 (New)

12. [3DS] Ouchi Mainichi Tamagotchi (Namco Bandai, 11/22/12) – 8,643 (New)

13. [PSP] Wand of Fortune 2 FD: Kimi ni Sasageru Epilogue (Idea Factory, 11/22/12) – 8,023 (New)

14. [3DS] Run For Money: Flee From the Strongest Hunters in History (Namco Bandai, 07/05/12) – 7,627 (244,363)

15. [PS3] Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires (Tecmo Koei, 11/08/12) – 7,462 (92,474)

16. [PSP] Summon Night 4 (Namco Bandai, 11/15/12) – 7,405 (47,516)

17. [3DS] Wagamama Fashion Girls Mode Yokubari Sengen (Nintendo, 09/27/12) – 7,364 (180,476)

18. [PSP] Kokoro Connect Yoci Random (Namco Bandai, 11/22/12) – 7,163 (New)

19. [3DS] Bravely Default: Flying Fairy (Square Enix, 10/11/12) – 7,017 (264,901)

20. [PS3] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2013 (Konami, 10/04/12) – 6,967 (362,952)