Estimated Japanese software and hardware sales for the week of January 16-22 have been revealed, with Pokémon Scarlet & Violet being knocked out of the top position by none other than Fire Emblem Engage.
Famitsu posted these details on Jan. 27 and broke down the numbers for all to view, revealing Fire Emblem Engage has come out of the gate with a throne-worthy 144,558 units sold. This allowed the game to overtake the latest Pokémon mainline titles, which hold 43,983 units sold. Pokémon Scarlet & Violet have held the position at the top of the charts on and off since their launch in November, with Fire Emblem Engage being one of the few games to steal the slot in that time.
Fire Emblem Engage released worldwide on January 20 with the inclusion of the game’s first wave of DLC, and will have three more waves of downloadable content to follow in the future. As it turns out, Ninendo games dominate a majority of the top 10 on Japan’s charts, with the likes of Splatoon 3 also having a solid 16,091 units sold.
Fire Emblem Engage has also impressively outdone the launch sales of the franchises previously most successful game, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, with Three Houses selling 143,130 copies in July 2019. This puts its sales numbers above Three Houses by 1,428 units sold, making it the best-selling title from the series to release on the Nintendo Switch in terms of its opening week sales.
It also ranks 8th overall among the entire series’ first week sales, with Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright and Conquest still holding the top spot thanks to its opening week sales of more than 300,000.
It looks like Nintendo’s made their mark with a very strong start to 2023, and it will certainly be interesting to see what’s in store further down the track.
[Source: Famitsu via Crunchyroll]