This Week In Sales: A Week Of Celebration For Level 5

Period: The week of December 31st (2012) – January 6th (2013)

Top-seller: Animal Crossing: New Leaf – 133,134

Nintendo 3DS sales: 123,075 | Total sales: 7,812,584

Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 156,184 | Total sales: 2,246,555

PlayStation Vita sales: 33,309 | Total sales: 1,164,134

Wii U sales: 67,083 | Total sales: 694,370

<< Last week’s software sales chart

Note: Since Media-Create were on vacation last week, and no sales data was released, this week’s sales chart includes the missing data from last week as well. Thus, all hardware and software figures are fully up-to-date. Additionally, we will also be covering some of the missing week’s events in today’s sales report, such as the launch of Level 5’s Fantasy Life.

On December 27th, Level 5 released Fantasy Life for the Nintendo 3DS. The game sold 117,071 copies in its first week and another 42,291 copies in its second week. As previously reported, Fantasy Lifeis sold out in Japanese stores, which means the game sold better than Level 5 were expecting.

An interesting point to consider is that Fantasy Life actually had a higher debut than Marvelous AQL’s Rune Factory 4, an established series in a similar genre. Rune Factory 4 sold 85,955 copies in its first week, which was the highest debut in the series’ history. Fantasy Life’s 117,071 figure is quite a bit higher than that, though, and this bodes well for Level 5’s new series.

Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Leaf still rules the pack and is at over 2 million copies sold in Japan. Note that this figure doesn’t include download sales, which, in the case of New Leaf, have been rather significant. Close behind it is New Super Mario Bros. 2, which is now approaching the 2 million mark as well.

Not displayed on this week’s chart is Inazuma Eleven 123: The Legend of Mamoru Endou, which compiles the original Nintendo DS Inazuma Eleven titles on a single 3DS cartridge with enhanced features. The compilation sold just 26,052 copies in its first week, and was gone from the top-20 by its second week. However, Inazuma Eleven GO 2 is performing well, and is now at 365,536 copies sold.

On the other hand, some games came back into the top-20 after a brief absence. Most notably, Style Savvy: Trendsetters is now close to the 300,000 mark, while Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney showed up for the holiday party last week as well. Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney is now at 250,000 sold.

Finally, Yakuza 5 continues to perform well and is now at nearly 545,000 sold.

The top-20 chart for the week was as follows:

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer, Media Create and Geimin.net.