During the last few weeks the Japanese video game market had a period of domination by 3DS games, while the week August the 19th and August the 25th was more mixed, with strong sales of a couple PS3 and PS Vita titles. Last week seems to mark the a turning of the wind in favor of PlayStation games according to major retailer and rental chain Tsutaya's weekly sales chart for the period between August the 26th and September the 1st.
It's worth mentioning that the sales charts by Tsutaya aren't as precise as the Media Create sales charts released each Wednesday, but they're released earlier and they're considered by most a good indication of what the Media Create charts will look like, since Tsutaya has a very high number of stores spread across the whole country.
Here's last week's top 20 (new titles are bolded):
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle - PS3
- Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - PS3
- Ragnarok Odyssey ACE - PS Vita
- Lost Planet 3 - PS3
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle (Limited Edition) - PS3
- Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (Collector's Edition) - PS3
- Disney Magic Castle: My Happy Life – 3DS
- Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - 3DS
- Youkai Watch - 3DS
- Conception 2 - PS Vita
- Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Maso Kishin III: Pride of Justice - PS3
- Tomodachi Collection: New Life - 3DS
- Animal Crossing: New Leaf - 3DS
- Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A Portable - PSP
- Fantasy Life Link! - 3DS
- Earth Defense Force 4 - PS3
- Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Maso Kishin III: Pride of Justice - PS Vita
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies – 3DS
- Pikmin 3 - Wii U
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - PSP
The first evident piece of data is the strong debut of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, that take four spots in the top six by themselves with their standard and collector's editions for PS3. Of course Final Fantasy XIV also released on PC, and Japanese sales charts don't track PC (or digital) sales, so it's safe to assume that its result is even better than what's shown here, especially considering the record breaking number of concurrent connections.
Ragnarok Odyssey Ace also starts strong, which is somewhat surprising since it's basically an upgraded remake of a game already released a while ago.
While 3DS games have to take a backseat to PlayStation newcomers, it's hard not to notice that the biggest sellers for Nintendo's portable have a lot of staying power, retaining quite decent positions in the charts despite having been on sale several weeks already.
Things aren't going as well on the Wii U side of things, and while Pikmin 3 still sells (but not much), Platinum Games' The Wonderful 101 has been completely wiped off the top 20 after its rather unimpressive debut.