"Splatoon Tops Smash Bros. Wii U In The First 14 Weeks Of Sales In Japan"

[dapperlace]

Wow!

Sauces

Sorry if this has been posted before. I had no idea! Considering Smash Bros is well...Smash Bros, I'd say that's quite the achievement. Ink on, squid kids.

 

[Shock "Charger Queen"]

O.M.G That really is wow.

 

[dapperlace]

If it overtakes Smash in overall sales and not just the first 14 weeks, damn! I'd love to see that. I was excited for this game from day one, and I'm glad Nintendo had so much faith in it from the start. It's really coming through.

 

[Elecmaw]

Interesting how SSB sold like crazy for the first five weeks but quickly diminished thereafter, while Splatoon keeps a steady pace going.

Wonder how sales are doing over at the USA and EU.

 

[CM2]

If it overtakes Smash in overall sales and not just the first 14 weeks, damn! I'd love to see that. I was excited for this game from day one, and I'm glad Nintendo had so much faith in it from the start. It's really coming through.

That would be so hard to do since there's only around 2.5 million Wii U sold in Japan and I believe SSB for 3DS sold around 2.3 million copies there so I wouldn't count on it to say the least.

 

[dapperlace]

That would be so hard to do since there's only around 2.5 million Wii U sold in Japan and I believe SSB for 3DS sold around 2.3 million copies there so I wouldn't count on it to say the least.

Well, it's comparing Splatoon sales to WiiU versions of Smash specifically, so it's more plausible. Splatoon would be hard-pressed to overtake sales on two differnt platforms when it's only available one one.

 

[GameGalaxy64]

If this doesn't mean Inkling in Smash, I don't know what will.

 

[Heroine of Squids]

I'm surprised Splatoon topped something as big as Smash Bros right now. Guess new IP's would do that sometimes.

 

[Nintendome]

Not surprised at all. Splatoon is excellent. :)

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

It was overtaken by the fourth week by games not on the Wii U though. Yo-Kai Watch 2 on the 3DS slammed it not long afterwards.

 

[Nintendome]

It was overtaken by the fourth week by games not on the Wii U though. Yo-Kai Watch 2 on the 3DS slammed it not long afterwards.

Gotta consider the Wii U's much smaller install base though. Do we know how it fares in terms of copies sold relative to active # of consoles?

 

[CM2]

Gotta consider the Wii U's much smaller install base though. Do we know how it fares in terms of copies sold relative to active # of consoles?

That is hard to determine since there is no way to see how many active Wii U users are out there, however from the last update on the number of Wii U sold it was about 10 million of them.

 

[dapperlace]

It was overtaken by the fourth week by games not on the Wii U though. Yo-Kai Watch 2 on the 3DS slammed it not long afterwards.

The 3DS tends to be more popular than the WiiU in general. I'm assuming that's why they specifically use the WiiU version of Smash for comparison. As stated earlier, comparing a WiiU title to a 3DS title in terms of sales seems a bit unfair, based on sales history I've seen over the last year. 3DS is always more up there.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Yeah, I wouldn't doubt that Splatoon is a killer app for the Wii U (I was actually astonished that it was, as Nintendo's not had much success with new IPs without "Wii" in the name lately), and it definitely helped move systems in Japan, though I have no idea to what extent, just not enough to put it on the same level as the 3DS.

I should also mention that, for some reason, I missed the fact that it was being compared specifically to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and thought that it was for all Wii U games.

According to Anime News Network's weekly data, by the way, this is how Splatoon has done each week up to August 30th overall in Japan. Splatoon was 1st in Wii U game sales except otherwise noted:
May 25th to May 31st: 1st
June 1st to June 7th: 1st
June 8th to June 14th: 3rd
June 15th to June 23rd: 3rd
June 22nd to June 28th: 6th (5th if both versions of Fire Emblem Fates counts as one)
June 29th to July 5th: 3rd
July 6th to July 12th: 5th
July 13th to July 19th: 5th (2nd in Wii U overall; beaten by Yoshi's Woolly World)
July 20th to July 26th: 4th
July 27th to August 2nd: 4th
August 3rd to August 9th: 3rd
August 10th to August 16th: 3rd
August 17th to August 23rd: 4th
August 24th to August 30th: 5th
(Total sales so far: 607,670)

Something to consider is that, looking at the charts, Mario Kart 8 had consistently outsold Super Smash Bros. for Wii U every week of that list. In fact, in most of these lists, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U didn't even crack the top 20. Ever since Yoshi's Woolly World's debut, it had also been beating Super Smash Bros. for Wii U every week. It seems that either the 3DS version had been cannibalizing sales of the Wii U version, or Smash Bros. loses steam faster than Mario Kart (though few things can outdo Mario Kart in sheer momentum across a hardware generation). If you want to see the lists themselves, they begin here. There is a link to the following week for each of these articles.

 

[dapperlace]

That's quite a hefty list, thanks! I'm so glad Splatoon is doing so well, mostly because I'm a little obsessed (whoops).

 

[C Gritz]

This game was always gonna do better than smash bros

 

[Shock "Charger Queen"]

Yep. Preeetty amazing.