Japanese Sales Charts: God of War Leaps Labo as Japan Goes Mad for Chibi Baseball on PS4

PS4 numbers spike

by Robert Ramsey Wed 2nd May 2018

Long running cartoony baseball series Power Pro (as it's commonly known outside of Japan) has always been popular in its native country, and the latest instalment has batted its way straight to the top of the Japanese software charts. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu launched on both PlayStation 4 and Vita, shifting a combined total of 183,000 copies -- more than enough to ensure first and second place on the charts, respectively.

Elsewhere, Nintendo Labo Variety Kit numbers fell hard, allowing God of War to jump above it and land in third place. The PS4 exclusive managed to move another 30,000 copies.

Meanwhile, the hardware charts paint an improved picture for Sony's consoles. After several weeks of low PS4 sales (supposedly due to some stock shortages), the current-gen system has bounced back. Across both the standard model and PS4 Pro, figures sit around the relatively comfortable 35,000 mark.

Hardware sales

Switch – 38,752 (34,165)
PlayStation 4 – 25,005 (4,480)
PlayStation 4 Pro – 10,004 (8,967)
PlayStation Vita – 4,562 (2,892)
New 2DS LL – 4,377 (4,191)
New 3DS LL – 2,840 (2,842)
2DS – 516 (439)
Xbox One – 123 (59)
Xbox One X – 56 (57)

Software sales

[PS4] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2018 (Konami, 04/26/18) – 124,831 (New)
[PSV] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2018 (Konami, 04/26/18) – 58,435 (New)
[PS4] God of War (SIE, 04/20/18) – 29,517 (75,608)
[NSW] Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 01: Variety Kit (Nintendo, 04/20/18) – 25,914 (116,324)
[NSW] Splatoon 2 (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 07/21/17) – 18,664 (2,267,587)
[NSW] Kirby: Star Allies (Nintendo, 03/16/18) – 17,950 (451,439)
[PS4] Utawarerumono: Chiriyuku Mono he no Komoriuta (Limited Edition Included) (Aquaplus, 04/26/18) – 14,426 (New)
[NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04/28/17) – 13,191 (1,497,835)
[NSW] SD Gundam: G Generation Genesis for Nintendo Switch (Bandai Namco, 04/26/18) – 11,975 (New)
[PS4] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II: Kai -The Erebonian Civil War- (Falcom, 04/26/18) – 11,345 (New)
[NSW] The Snack World: Trejarers Gold (Level-5, 04/12/18) – 10,482 (61,984)
[PSV] Utawarerumono: Chiriyuku Mono he no Komoriuta (Limited Edition Included) (Aquaplus, 04/26/18) – 8,591 (New)
[NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Limited Edition Included) (Nintendo, 03/03/17) – 7,850 (969,276)
[NSW] Super Mario Odyssey (Bundle Version Included) (Nintendo, 10/27/17) – 7,244 (1,704,766)
[NSW] Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy for Nintendo Switch (Bandai Namco, 04/26/18) – 6,682 (New)
[PS4] Doukoku Soshite… (Limited Edition Included) (El Dia, 04/26/18) – 6,357 (New)
[NSW] Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 02: Robot Kit (Nintendo, 04/20/18) – 5,680 (34,309)
[PS4] Bravo Team (Bundle Edition Included) (SIE, 04/26/18) – 4,980 (New)
[PS4] Far Cry 5 (Ubisoft, 03/29/18) – 4,430 (127,388)
[PS4] Cities: Skylines PlayStation 4 Edition (Spike Chunsoft, 04/12/18) – 4,316 (21,432)

[source 4gamer.net, via gematsu.com]

Robert (or Rob if you're lazy) has been a fan of PlayStation since the 90s, when Tekken 2 introduced him to the incredible world of video games. He still takes his fighting games seriously, but RPGs are his true passion. The Witcher, Dragon Quest, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, he's played 'em all — a little too much, some might say.

1
BAMozzy
Wed 2nd May 2018

Baseball is popular in Japan (so I believe) and its not surprising to see PS4 jump in sales with both God of War and Baseball both topping the software charts.

2
premko1
Wed 2nd May 2018

High PS4 sales = Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu

3
ShogunRok
Wed 2nd May 2018

@munkondi Unfortunately I don't think the series has ever made it outside of Japan (someone feel free to correct me on that). It's been going for decades, too.

4
ShogunRok
Wed 2nd May 2018

@premko1 PS4 sales aren't especially high — this is around the usual amount that the console sells per week in Japan (20-30k). Definitely seems like rumours of stock shortages were real over the last few weeks.

5
Agramonte
Wed 2nd May 2018

Wow, GOW is holding on. Wish they bring jPP to the States.

6
Fight_Teza_Fight
Wed 2nd May 2018

Guess the reported stock shortages were true. How strange. Maybe a follow on effect from how MH World shifted consoles more than expected?

Hope Sony release a blog post about GOWs performance. That’s a pretty small drop off again & the game seems to have done very, very well.

7
turtlelink
Wed 2nd May 2018

@ShogunRok They released one for PS2 years back in the US. I still have it!

8
AdamNovice
Wed 2nd May 2018

Looks like Labo wasn't the huge global seller that some Nintendo fans thought it would be.

9
Haruki_NLI
Wed 2nd May 2018

@adf86 Cant fault em for trying skmeething new. And unlike previous failures at least this wasnt an entire console.

10
ShogunRok
Wed 2nd May 2018

@turtlelink Oh really? I thought it was weird thinking that not a single game had made it overseas. Guess it made sense for Konami to try its luck with the PS2 given its popularity. Thanks!

11
wiiware
Wed 2nd May 2018

Labomba?

12
Octane
Wed 2nd May 2018

God of War has the legs of a jötunn!

Seems like word of mouth is doing a lot of good for this game.

13
Haruki_NLI
Wed 2nd May 2018

@wiiware Isn't that a song? Quick, parody it!

So er...just realised Monster Hunter is out of the top 20. Seems to explode and then fall fairly fast over 3 months, compared to other games with legs in Japan that still do well. A shame, but MonHun has always had that problem.

14
Gamer83
Wed 2nd May 2018

@ShogunRok
Yeah, PS4 sales haven't been particularly strong in Japan the entire gen but those numbers the last couple weeks were scarily low. Hopefully this will be the start of it settling back into that 30K-35K range again. Not good but much better sub-10K.

15
lacerz
Wed 2nd May 2018

I wonder what caused the Xbox One sales to increase over 100%...

16
brendon987
Wed 2nd May 2018

Nice to see ps vita software still sells.

17
Link41
Wed 2nd May 2018

God of War (SIE, 04/20/18) – 29,517 (75,608)
Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 02: Robot Kit (Nintendo, 04/20/18) – 5,680 (34,309)
Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 01: Variety Kit (Nintendo, 04/20/18) – 25,914 (116,324)
150k vs. 75k is telling me that God of War is struggling (sales wise) over there or am I just reading the charts wrong?

18
Matroska
Wed 2nd May 2018

@adf86 Who'd have guessed that selling bits of cardboard to people for at least £80 wouldn't have worked too well?

19
KirbyTheVampire
Wed 2nd May 2018

Good. God of War deserves good sales far more than Labo does.

20
Octane
Wed 2nd May 2018

@Link41 The first number is this week's sales (29,517 for God of War), the number with parentheses is the total amount of sales so far (in this case that's both this week's and last week's sales for God of War and Labo, since they are only out for two weeks).

God of War sold around 46,000 copies last week, and around 29,500 this week. That's pretty good actually. The launch wasn't that good, but that's to be expected for God of War in Japan, but the drop off isn't nearly as bad as most games experience. Sales usually drop quite a lot in the second week, since most people get the game during the first week.

21
themcnoisy
Thu 3rd May 2018

@adf86 Labo is a toy. It has had a huge marketing campaign on nick jnr (my 2 year old is a big fan). I dont think it really belongs in any of these charts regardless of its success or failure at the tills.

On the subject of God of War, there isnt a huge amount of activity over on the few japanese sites Ive quickly browsed. Its all DK Tropical Freeze and your typical JP crap from before the last few years renaissance, mobile games, anime girl idol centric rubbish and a ton of final fantasy adverts. There is a travel version of the oculus rift which I had no idea about which caught my attention though. Pubg mobile is the best thing ever apparently in Japan. But no room for God of War articles, rather by the numbers jrpgs.