Period: The week of March 26th – April 1st (2012)
Top-seller: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance – 213,579
Nintendo 3DS sales: 121,921 | Total sales: 5,522,588
PlayStation Vita sales: 12,105 | Total sales: 642,490
Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance finally hit Japan last week, and sold a surprisingly low number of copies: 213,579 to be precise. For the sake of comparison, here’s what Kingdom Hearts’ first-week sales looked like on the Nintendo DS and PSP:
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS): 295,205
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP): 445,962
As you can see, Kingdom Hearts 3D debuted a fair bit lower than both games. One of the reasons for this is most certainly that the Nintendo 3DS userbase is nowhere near as large in size as the DS and PSP userbases were when 358/2 and Birth by Sleep were released.
This is reflected in the fact that PSP sales only saw an increase of 12,000 units during the week that Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was released in 2010, meaning that most people who wanted the game already owned the device. By comparison, 3DS sales jumped from 94,000 to 122,000 for Kingdom Hearts 3D, meaning that a lot more Kingdom Hearts fans had to buy a new device this time around.
Another possibility is that Kingdom Hearts fans are starting to outgrow the series, and since the long-running story isn’t very easy to keep up with at this point, picking up new fans is a bit of a difficult prospect. Perhaps it’s time for Square Enix to get Kingdom Hearts 3 over with, and reboot the series like they’ve suggested, in order to preserve its long-term viability.
The top-20 software sales chart for the week is as follows:
| Lw | Tw | Title | Weekly Sales | Total Sales | Sys. | Publisher |
| New | 01. | Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance | 213,579 | New | 3DS | Square Enix |
| New | 02. | Pro Baseball Spirits 2012 | 90,433 | New | PS3 | Konami |
| New | 03. | Pro Baseball Spirits 2012 | 60,141 | New | PSP | Konami |
| 01. | 04. | Kid Icarus: Uprising | 47,179 | 179,705 | 3DS | Nintendo |
| 03. | 05. | Pokémon Conquest | 30,535 | 267,608 | DS | Pokémon Co. |
| 02. | 06. | Black Panther 2: Yakuza Asura Chapter | 26,655 | 131,592 | PSP | Sega |
| 08. | 07. | Super Mario 3D Land | 24,936 | 1,464,696 | 3DS | Nintendo |
| 07. | 08. | Monster Hunter Tri G | 21,288 | 1,358,410 | 3DS | Capcom |
| 08. | 09. | Mario Kart 7 | 19,653 | 1,621,631 | 3DS | Nintendo |
| New | 10. | TheIdolm | 17,759 | New | PS3 | Namco Bandai |
| New | 11. | Pro Baseball Spirits 2012 | 17,264 | New | PSV | Konami |
| 12 | 12. | Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games | 12,947 | 112,603 | 3DS | Nintendo |
| 04. | 13. | Devil May Cry HD Collection | 11,926 | 55,717 | PS3 | Capcom |
| 15. | 14. | Hatsune Miku and Future Stars: Project Mirai | 8,267 | 124,618 | 3DS | Sega |
| New | 15. | Silent Hill HD Collection | 7,971 | New | PS3 | Konami |
| 13. | 16. | One Piece: Pirate Warriors | 7,851 | 804,601 | PS3 | Namco Bandai |
| 16. | 17. | Harvest Moon: The Land of Origin | 7,657 | 154,764 | 3DS | Nintendo |
| 10. | 18. | Shining Blade | 7,535 | 148,824 | PSP | Sega |
| New | 19. | New Little King’s Story | 7,141 | New | PSV | Konami |
| 21. | 20. | Wii Sports Resort | 6,596 | 905,638 | Wii | Nintendo |
Published: Apr 4, 2012 01:33 pm