PlayStation 5 Dominated Japan’s Sales Last Week; Fire Emblem Engage Dethroned

The PlayStation 5 has recently witnessed a resurgence and ascended above all the other consoles last week, as revealed by Famitsu in Japan’s retail sales charts for January 23rd to 29th, 2023. Moreover, the dominator last time, Fire Emblem Engage, has also finally been dethroned by an entirely new, unexpected entry.

Coming towards the new entry making a sudden appearance, Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life for the Nintendo Switch seemingly sold the most amount of units to acclaim the first spot in Japan’s retail sales charts last week.

The remake of the 2003 classic on the Nintendo GameCube rolled over an impressive 40,759 physical copies for its first week. It has only been released in Japan exclusively and will see a global release in June.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet for the Nintendo Switch were overshadowed by Fire Emblem Engage last week, breaking off a long cycle, but it managed to rise to the second spot.

The 9th-generation Pokemon titles managed to move over substantial figures of 37,265 retail copies last week in Japan. Cumulative sales have seen a rise to an amazing amount of 4,776,300 physical units in Japan alone.

The other new contender is Square Enix’s newly released IP Forspoken for the PlayStation 5, which garnered a remarkable number of 29055 retail sales for its first week in Japan. The open-world game set in a fantasy magic-filled world of Athia has managed to make its footing in Japan by occupying the third spot in the sales charts.

Fire Emblem Engage has dropped to the fourth spot after a pretty successful week, but it still sold a substantial amount by rolling over 28,442 retail copies last week in Japan. The accumulative sales stand at a stunning 173,000 figure and will most likely reach over 2 million units sold this week.

Splatoon 3 has receded further down to the fifth spot after consistently looming over the sales charts for a few weeks. However, that quickly changed when the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet games were released. The third entry in the Splatoon series marketed 14,844 retail units last week, selling over 5,128,314 copies in Japan so far.

Moreover, things were bittersweet on the hardware side last week in Japan; in a rare moment, the PlayStation 5 digital and regular editions seemingly overshadowed all Nintendo Switch models after a long time.

The PlayStation 5 digital edition sold 9,652 units, while the other variant moved 53,256 units in Japan last week. Cumulative sales have also surpassed a fantastic 2,266,567 threshold.

Jim Ryan recently apologized for the stock shortages and announced that Asia, including the Japanese region, has fixed the issue. Despite the price increase in Japan, the consoles appear to be selling at a staggering rate, as made apparent by the latest hardware sales charts.

The Nintendo Switch, on the other side, sold 28,787 consoles, with the OLED variant selling only 12,564 units. The Switch Lite version moved less than 10,000 units, standing at 9757 consoles sold last week in Japan.

The Xbox Series X and the Series S were the least-performing consoles last week in Japan, toiling to move hardly 1000 units collectively. The Series X sold only 435 units, while Series S achieved a tad bit better, selling 830 consoles.

What are your thoughts about the PlayStation 5 dethroning Switch to sell the most units and Fire Emblem Engage losing the first spot? Do you think the reign of the new Pokemon game is finally over? Do let us know your opinions in the comments below.