Summary of titles that have shipped millions in Japan

This is Haraoka from Beyond

joined CESA (Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association) in October ( https://beyondjapan.com/cesa ), and at that time we received the following book.

2017 CESA Games White Paper

 

This book contains various statistical data on the game industry, but this time I would like to focus on one of them: "The million-seller titles shipped in Japan to date."

First, the top 10 rankings of all time (as of 2016)

Top 10 million-selling titles of all time

Nintendo is overwhelmingly dominant. For some reason, the Game Boy Pokemon series was collected together and treated as an exception, but with a cumulative total of 23 million units, it is by far the most popular! In terms of per game sales, Super Mario Bros. is undoubtedly in first place. In second place is New Super Mario Bros

The next game to come in third place was surprising, but it was none other than Level-5's Yo-kai Watch 2! It's amazing that it managed to make it into the top three of all time. After that came the Pokémon series and Animal Crossing, which is where Brain Training comes in. But the next non-Nintendo game to make it onto the rankings was Capcom's Monster Hunter 3, which was a bit surprising, as it wasn't Dragon Quest

There are a total of 232 titles in Japan that have sold over a million copies. We have broken them down by manufacturer, platform, and decade

Million-selling title ranking by manufacturer

As expected, Nintendo dominates in both number of titles and unit sales. Second place goes to Square Enix, as expected. Their number of million-selling titles is extremely high compared to other manufacturers. Third through fifth places go to Sony, Bandai Namco, and Capcom, but these three manufacturers are quite close in terms of number of titles and unit sales. However, Capcom comes in second in average units sold, meaning they have many big hit titles. For some reason, Konami titles aren't included in the ranking, so I  Wikipedia  part. Level-5 also comes in second in average units sold. This is largely due to Yo-kai Watch sales, but they also have two Inazuma Eleven titles. The oldest title is from 2007, so seven million-selling hits in 10 years is impressive.

By the way, I haven't heard much about BPS, but they are the makers of Tetris. Personally, I was nostalgic when they included Jaleco's Moero Pro Yakyuu

Million-selling title ranking by platform

In terms of million-selling titles by platform, the Famicom came in first, as expected, with a lot of games selling well. The 3DS came in second, but it was number one in terms of sales

The top-ranked console in terms of average number of units sold was the Game Boy, and surprisingly, the second place was the Game Boy Advance. Looking at the fact that the PSP, 3DS, and DS came in third, fourth, and sixth, it seems like portable consoles tend to produce mega-hits. The influence of Pokémon seems to be a big factor, too

Million-selling titles by decade

Looking at million-selling titles by decade, the 1990s was the most popular in terms of number of titles, while the 2000s was the most popular in terms of average number of titles. Does this mean that these 20 years were the heyday of the consumer era?

In the 2010s, the number of titles dropped dramatically, but the average number of units sold per million title was actually the highest. I think the structure is changing to one where big titles are selling more intensively

Million-selling titles of 2017

So far in 2017, there have been three million-selling titles

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (3 million units) for Square Enix 3DS/PS4
; Monster Hunter Double Cross (1.7 million units) for Capcom 3DS
; Splatoon 2 (1.2 million units) for Nintendo Switch.

*See below: Famitsu.com Top 30 Sales Ranking
 4Gamer.net Weekly Sales Ranking Plus

Dragon Quest's 3 million units is impressive. Splatoon 2 looks set to continue growing. Switch software titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (740,000 units) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (600,000 units) are steadily increasing in sales, so they may reach 1 million units in the future. Super Mario Odyssey will also be released this weekend, so it looks set to sell a million units as well

summary

Looking at million-selling titles, Nintendo is definitely the strongest! Personally, I found it interesting that Level-5 is ranked so highly and that portable consoles tend to have million-selling titles. If I have another opportunity, I'd like to compile other data