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Earlier today, we shared news concerning Splatoon 3’s launch in Japan. For those who missed it, Splatoon 3 managed to sell 3.45 million units in its first 3 days, making it the fastest-selling Switch game in Japan. While that was certainly cause for celebration, there’s an even bigger milestone that’s been achieved.

Saying Splatoon 3 is the fastest-selling Switch game ever is a bit of an understatement. The real shocker is that Splatoon 3 is also the fastest-selling videogame in Japan ever. Yes, you read that correctly. There has never been another videogame released in Japan that has moved 3.45 million units in the first 3 days. Not Pokémon, not Animal Crossing, not Dragon Quest.

This is an absolutely amazing achievement for the game, and one that pretty much no one saw coming. I think most expected Splatoon 3 to be a big hit for Nintendo, especially in Japan, but not to this degree! Now we get to see how long Splatoon 3 holds onto its crown!

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Comments (4)

jumpmanfr

1+ y ago

This needs to be confirmed next Thursday in Famitsu sales.
Nintendo was probably talking about the number of units sent to retailers, not the final consumer.


rammyramramram

1+ y ago

@jumpmanfr, they say it includes both physical and digitally combined. While it may be *possible* they paired digital sell-through with shipments, that'd be odd to pair together. Nintendo can immediately request sell-through data from retailers with digital inventory-keeping systems, so it's unlikely they don't actually have these numbers on-hand.
Famitsu however doesn't include digital sales, so I expect their sales estimates to be in the ballpark of 2.9 or 3 million as a result.


thegreatking

1+ y ago

@jumpmanfr

It doesnt matter they count as sales because the retailers bought then anyway


rammyramramram

1+ y ago

Famitsu has dropped, revealing 1,934,680 retail sales with an 80-100% sell-through indicating sellouts. However, if we were to take the conjecture that Nintendo posted shipments with digital sales combined as fact, and we were to be very conservative about sales, Splatoon would have (if 80% sell-through) 2,418,350 total copies shipped. This leaves 1,031,650 unaccounted for that we can presume are digital copies. That would leave Splatoon 3 with 1,934,680 physical + 1,031,650 digital sales, meaning in its opening week Splatoon will have sold 2,966,330, which is still substantially above Pokemon Black and White's 2,557,779 launch sales.

TL;DR even if conjecture about Nintendo using shipments instead of physical sales, Splatoon 3 continues to be the best launch week for any game in Japan.