Splatoon 2 has had a massive opening week in Japan, with the new Switch shooter reportedly selling over three times as many copies as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Nintendo’s latest Switch release sold an estimated 670,955 copies at Japanese retail, compared to the 186,379 physical copies sold by Breath of the Wild within the same time period. Though Zelda was released for the Switch’s launch, meaning less people owned the console then than they do now, the shooter still outperformed the previous top-selling Switch game by a considerable amount.
The sales data, reported by Japanese outlet Famitsu, also reveals that Nintendo has sold an estimated 1.2 million Switch units of July 23. This means that more than half of Switch owners in Japan own a copy of Splatoon 2, which is an incredible feat considering that it’s only the second entry in a pretty niche series.
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It’s made more impressive when that the first Splatoon sold 156,610 physical copies in its first 4 days on sale in Japan (via SplatNet), meaning that four times as many people have invested in its sequel. As a result, Splatoon 2 is the best-selling Switch title to date in Japan, ranking ahead of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which has 534,000 units thus far. It has also had the best debut week of any Switch game since the console’s launch in March.
According to MCV, Splatoon 2 has proven so popular in Japan that along with topping its sales charts, it also prompted a 178 per cent sales for the Switch. Elsewhere in the Japanese charts, Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and The Millionaire’s Conspiracy ranked in second place, while ARMs has struggled to maintain in momentum in the region, falling down to tenth place.
Here are the top ten best-selling games for the week ending July 23:
1. Splatoon 2, Switch, Nintendo, 670,955 (New)
2. Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and The Millionaire’s Conspiracy, 3DS, Level 5, 70,641 (New)
3. Hey! Pikmin, 3DS, Nintendo, 25,812
4. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, PS4, Square Enix, 19,105
5. Sumikko Gurashi: Koko, Doko nan desu, 3DS, Nippon Columbia, 16,488 (New)
6. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Switch, Nintendo, 10,531
7. Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star, Switch, Marvelous, 10,167 (New)
8. Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st], PS4, Arc System Works, 7,831 (New)
9. Gundam Versus, PS4, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, 6,010
10. ARMS, Switch, Nintendo, 5,624
