Japanese Games Market Drops 8% Revenue in 12 Months, but Nintendo Remain King

In the last twelve months, the Japanese gaming market has suffered an 8% decrease overall, according to a Famitsu report with stats from Enterbrain. Hardware was the market’s one saving grace as sales of systems were up by 2.4% whilst software lagged behind with a drop of 13.7% from the previous year.

The release of the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS are the reasons for the growth in the console figures as the push for these handhelds was pretty big over in Japan. The sales data was compliled from 27th December 2010 through to 25th December 2011. The overall figure for revunue was 454,380 million yen. Hardware was up to 179, 740 million yen (£1.5 billion)  and software was down to 274, 640 million yen (£2.29 billion).

After a shaky start internationally, the 3DS won big time in Japan selling, 4.1 million systems and leading the charge in hardware sales. PSP was second with over 1.9 million sold and PS3 behind that with over 1.4 million sold.

In terms of games, Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land are first and second respectively, selling over a million copies each. And Monster Hunter did pretty well too. But you knew that already.

Below is a list of the best selling hardware and software in Japan for the last 12 months with life to date sales in brackets;

Hardware Sales in Japan for 2011

1. Nintendo 3DS: 4,135,739
2. PSP: 1,960,177 (18,237,108)
3. PlayStation 3: 1,467,261 (7,417,148)
4. Wii: 937,451 (12,167,743)
5. Nintendo DS: 711,204 (32,835,502)
6. PlayStation Vita: 402,794
7. Xbox 360: 114,075 (1,520,738)

Software Sales in Japan for 2011

1. [3DS] Mario Kart 7 – 1,082,391
2. [3DS] Super Mario 3D Land – 1,042,511
3. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 3rd – 1,021,457 (4,502,446)
4. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3G – 809,322
5. [PS3] Final Fantasy XIII-2 – 697,146
6. [PSP] Final Fantasy Type-0 – 696,428
7. [WII] Minna no Rhythm Tengoku – 633,429
8. [PS3] Tales of Xillia – 632,151
9. [WII] Wii Sports Resort – 612,807 (2,732,655)
10. [WII] Wii Party – 584,545 (2,123,773)

Source: Andriasang