Sony’s ongoing campaign of insulting detractors by asserting they are bigots while DMCAing content creators, does not appear to be having any success in preventing The Last of Us 2 sales from declining. As prior reported, sales in the UK have declined by 80% in the game’s second week on the market. No word has emerged on how well sales figures are doing in the United States have been released.
Now courtesy of Famitsu we can see sales in Japan have decreased by 85% in their second week. If this sales trend now seen in both the United Kingdom and Japan has played out the same in the United States it does not bold well for the continued relevance of the IP.
Sales Chart from Nintendo Everything
1. [NSW] Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 70,552 / 5,004,720
2. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure – 34,782 / 1,073,514
3. [NSW] Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics – 27,323 / 171,620
4. [PS4] The Last of Us Part II – 25,993 / 204,689
5. [PS4] Remnant: From The Ashes – 19,224 / NEW
6. [NSW] Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia – 15,242 / NEW
7. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 9,338 / 3,005,043
8. [NSW] Pokemon Sword/Shield – 8,730 / 3,638,993
9. [NSW] Splatoon 2 – 7,407 / 3,470,635
10. [NSW] Mr. Driller DrillLand – 6,661 / NEW
Sales decline of this magnitude is not unheard of in the industry. Though it has previously been only associated with titles that have been regarded as failures or underperformers by their publishers. Final Fantasy 7 Remake clung to charts, but was easily being outsold by nearly half-decade old titles. Resident Evil 3 after enjoying decent launch week sales was off the charts in its second week. Gears 5, one of Microsoft’s fastest-selling titles nose-dived in sales following an explosive launch. Death Stranding is reported to not have performed well following a strong launch window. Although in that game’s case Sony’s exclusivity contract allowed Kojima Production to consider the game a success, while Sony is rumored to have the opposite impression.
It will be interesting to see whether The Last of Us 2 will remain on sales charts in the game’s third week. Aside from the upcoming Switch release of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3, Bloostained: Curse of the Moon 2, and Friends of Mineral Town, the game does not have anything approaching serious competition. This may allow it to stay on the sales charts for the third week and even beyond, but only at increasingly diminishing sales volumes.
(Thanks for the tip Shadow.Dancer)
