Japanese game industry sales up year-on-year thanks to Pokémon and 3DS

[garyopa]

Industry saw gains in First Half of 2012...



Enterbrain and Famitsu have released the complete Japanese sales data for the first half of 2012. 3DS dominates hardware and software.

Enterbrain and Famitsu.com released the Japanese domestic industry sales totals for the first half of 2012 (covering December 26 through June 24).

Looks like, the Japanese games market grew for the first time in two years, thanks to 3DS.

Total hardware and software sales reached 193.4 billion yen, up 0.7% from the previous year's 191.98 billion.

The increase came despite falling hardware sales. Hardware fell from 79.81 billion yen in 2011 to 70.73 billion in 2012.

Software made up for the hardware losses, rising 9.4% from 2011's 112.17 billion yen to 122.67 billion yen.

It's not a surprise that 3DS was the top selling system, with 2.22 million units. PS3 and PSP are next.

Here's the complete Hardware data:

1. Nintendo 3DS: 2,219,548 (total 6,355,287)
2. PlayStation 3: 695,465 (total 8,112,613)
3. PlayStation Portable: 500,333 (total 18,737,441)
4. PlayStation Vita: 353,657 (total 756,451)
5. Nintendo Wii: 265,578 (total 12,433,321)
6. Xbox 360: 33,809 (total 1,554,547)
7. Nintendo DS: 20,239 (total 32,855,741)

And the Software chart for the period (with release date in parenthesis):

1. Pokémon Black & White 2 (DS, Pokémon, 23rd June 2012): 1,618,621
2. One Piece Pirate Warriors (PS3, Namco Bandai, 1st March 2012 2012): 806,578
3. Dragon Quest Monsters Terry’s Wonderland 3D (3DS, Square Enix, 31st March 2012): 743,967
4. Mario Kart 7 (3DS, Nintendo, 1st December 2011): 665,573 (total 1,747,964)
5. Monster Hunter 3 G (3DS, Capcom, 10th December 2011): 665,394 (1,474,716)

NEWS SOURCE #1: Japanese game industry sales up year over year thanks to Pokemon 3DS (via) VG247
NEWS SOURCE #2: Japan game industry (via) Andriasang

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[MadonnaProject]

Wow the japanese love their nintendo handhelds don't they?

[JonathanD]

Wow the japanese love their nintendo handhelds don't they?

At one point in time I wondered if every Japanese person owned like 2 or 3 DS's lol

At the rate they are buying 3DS's it will not be long before I wonder the same thing about it as well.

[billysastard]

At one point in time I wondered if every Japanese person owned like 2 or 3 DS's lol

At the rate they are buying 3DS's it will not be long before I wonder the same thing about it as well.

in fact its about 1 in 4 of the population.