Nintendo Switch Sports takes Kirby's spot at No.1 | Japan Monthly Charts
Marie Dealessandri
Features Editor
Tuesday 14th June 2022
Nintendo Switch Sports took the top spot of the Japanese charts for May, having released on April 29.
The title sold just shy of 420,000 copies throughout the month and was a bit below Wii Sports' performance back in 2006, which sold 553,000 copies in its first five weeks. Nintendo Switch Sports was also Europe's biggest game of May.
This was enough for the title to be well ahead of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, which had been at the top of the Japanese charts for the past two months.
HAL Laboratory's title sold a further 117,000 units in May, bringing its total to 736,287 copies sold in Japan since launch on March 25.
Last month's No.2 -- eBaseball Powerful Pro Yakyu 2022 for Switch -- dropped to No.3, while the PS4 version of the title charted at No.7. The two versions combined sold an additional 119,900 units in May, meaning they would be above Kirby and the Forgotten Land if not considered separate SKUs.
The only other new entry in the Japanese top ten for May was Koei Tecmo's Taiko Risshiden V DX, which released on Switch on May 19. The title entered the rankings directly at No.10 and sold a little bit over 25,000 copies.
Overall, more than 1.6 million games were sold in Japan in May, 86.6% of which were on Nintendo Switch. That means that Nintendo was once again the top publisher both in value and volume for May, followed by Konami.
The Switch sold an additional 368,000 consoles in May, bringing its lifetime sales to 24.8 million and taking over the Nintendo 3DS and its 24.5 million units sold since launch in February 2011.
Here's Japan's top ten best-selling physical games of May 2022, courtesy of Famitsu:
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
