This Week In Sales: Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Week 2

Period: The week of October 13th – October 19th (2014)

Top-seller: Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS) – 327,212

Nintendo 3DS sales: 6,778 | Tot. sales: 9,640,150

Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 16,771 | Tot. sales: 6,672,801

New Nintendo 3DS sales: 29,341 | Tot. sales: 99,391

New Nintendo 3DS XL sales: 60,348 | Tot. sales: 225,104

PlayStation Vita sales: 8,761 | Tot. sales: 3,161,817

Vita TV sales: 630 | Tot. sales: 140,611

Wii U sales: 5,293 | Tot. sales: 1,959,644

PlayStation 4 sales: 8,046 | Tot. sales: 753,172

Xbox One sales: 728 | Tot. sales: 33,715

<< Last week’s software sales chart

<< How to read and understand sales

In its second week on store shelves, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate saw a 77% decrease from the week prior. In comparison, the original Monster Hunter 4saw a 72% decrease from its first week to its second.

Selling 327,212 copies in week 2, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate has now sold 1.77 million copies at retail in total. That isn’t a bad figure by any stretch of the imagination. Capcom have already moved 2 million copies of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate between retail shipments and download sales in Japan alone, and we’ll probably see additional shipments in the months to come.

That having been said, as mentioned in a previous report, the game probably won’t break the 2-million-sold mark at retail for another couple of weeks, and since it is an updated version of Monster Hunter 4 rather than an entirely new game, it will likely see a larger drop off from week-to-week than its predecessor as well, which will mean slower sales in general.

4 Ultimate is interesting because it’s the first time since 2008’s Monster Hunter Freedom Unite that a Monster Hunter game has seen an expanded version released on the same platform. While Monster Hunter Freedom 2 and Freedom Unite were both on the PSP, every expanded version of Monster Hunter since has been on a different platform than its predecessor, owing to market circumstances. For example; Monster Hunter Tri was on Wii, while Monster Hunter Portable 3rd—which built upon Tri and featured a different world with additional monsters—was on PSP. Meanwhile, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate—which was a direct update to Tri—was on Nintendo 3DS.

Compared to Freedom Unite, which is the closest comparison one could make in terms of platform environment, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is clearly doing very well. Freedom Unite sold 880,468 copies at launch, and went on to move 3.7 million units worldwide over a period of several years. However, the series has grown since 2008, and 4 Ultimate is clearly benefitting from that growth. Capcom expect the game to move 3.9 million units worldwide by March 31st, 2015. That said, it won’t be outselling Monster Hunter 4 any time soon, and it appears Capcom were already aware of this fact during development. At the same time, it bears mentioning that 4 itself did not manage to outsell its predecessor, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, which was released at a point where the series was something of a social phenomenon.

With in mind, it should be interesting to see just what the company has in mind for the inevitable Monster Hunter 5. We live in an age where smartphone gaming is cutting into the traditional portable games market more and more every year, and the games that are best equipped to remain relevant are the ones with strong social elements, such as Animal Crossing, Pokémon and Monster Hunter. When it does come, I suspect Monster Hunter 5 will need to do more in terms of social features and getting players talking, mingling and sharing with one another, both in person and online.

The top-20 software sales chart for last week is as follows:

Sales data acquired from 4Gamer and Media Create.