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Industry News
2018/12

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Sold 1.23 Million Retail Units In Japan In 3 Days

News reports are circulating that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch had blockbuster sales over the weekend release between December 7th and December 9th in Japan. The game managed to move 1.23 million physical SKUs in Japan along, according to Siliconera.

This doesn’t include the game’s digital sales in Japan either, so we’re not sure exactly how well the game did in total in Japan, and this doesn’t even cover what the game may have sold in Europe and North America.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is also apparently a proven console mover, managing to shift nearly 280,000 Switch units in Japan between December 3rd and December 9th, with the estimated total coming out to around 6.1 million units making up the install base in Japan.

According to Forbes, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime is confident that the Nintendo Switch is on target to meet their fiscal forecasts, mentioning to the outlet that Black Friday was pretty huge for the Switch…

“We’re feeling confident in our momentum and it’s not just a stellar launch of Pokémon, it’s not just what appears to be a stellar launch for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. That Black Friday through Cyber Monday time frame was critically important to us, the remaining shopping days now through Christmas are critically important to us. More days right after Christmas as consumers receive gift cards or take unwanted gifts and monetize into things like Nintendo Switch are important to us. So, this is going to be an ongoing effort to make sure that we drive our business forward through the balance of this holiday season but also the first calendar quarter as well.”

As noted by Forbes, Nintendo would have to move around 10 million units before March, 2019 to meet forecasts. Between now and March there aren’t many other major AAA releases that could move units like Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu or Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee. And it’s doubtful anything in the first quarter of 2019 will be as big as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but maybe the game will be enough to shift 10 million SKUs of the Switch globally, especially since they’ve managed to move 300,000 units in Japan alone within the span of a week. They could end up moving a whole 1 million SKUs in Japan throughout December alone, which would be extremely impressive.

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