Every Thursday we cover the weekly Famitsu sales charts, which tracks physical boxed game sales and hardware sales in Japan. The holidays interrupted the release of a chart last week, meaning this week’s chart covers from Dec. 26 – Jan. 08. That’s two whole weeks of sales data goodness. Nintendo absolutely dominated the post-Christmas and New Year period, with six of the top ten games being Nintendo first-party titles.
Unsurprisingly, it’s Pokémon Scarlet and Violet leading the sales. The games sold a huge 291,000 units, bringing the physical sales of the latest Pokémon entries to 4.6 million in less than two months. Splatoon 3 is a strong second place, selling 107,000 copies and taking the total sales to just shy of 3.8 million units. The launch of Splatoon 3 was enormous, briefly becoming the biggest selling video game launch ever in Japan, until it was taken over by Pokémon Scarlet and Violet a few months later. Scarlet and Violet have even overtaken the sales of their predecessors in just eight weeks.
Across the rest of the chart, Nintendo continues to rule. At the third spot is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with 68,000 sales, followed by Nintendo Switch Sports in fourth place reaching 66,000 copies sold. PlayStation secures its only entry on the chart with Gran Turismo 7, sitting at sixth place with a decent 38,892 sales. As for hardware, it’s once again the Switch taking the top spot with 250,000 consoles sold over the two week period, compared to PS5 which only managed 85,000 sales, hampered by hardware shortages.
Here’s the full Famitsu sales chart for Dec. 26 – Jan. 08.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (Switch): 291,322 weekly / 4,630,253 total
- Splatoon 3 (Switch): 107,700 weekly / 3,795,514 total
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch): 68,772 weekly / 5,083,147 total
- Nintendo Switch Sports (Switch): 66,720 weekly / 954,442 total
- Dragon Quest Treasures (Switch): 48,297 weekly / 246,700 total
- Gran Turismo 7 (PS5): 38,892 weekly / 256,905 total
- Minecraft (Switch): 37,443 weekly / 2,997,449 total
- Momotaro Dentetsu: Showa, Heisei… (Switch): 34,770 weekly / 2,817,703 total
- Mario Party Superstars (Switch): 30,341 weekly / 1,144,473 total
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch): 27,550 weekly / 5,092,71 total
How far do you think Pokémon will go? Will it be the best selling game of the Switch’s life cycle? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and keep your eyes on GameLuster for more gaming news.
