NPD December 2017: Call of Duty WW2 #1 SW, Nintendo Switch #1 HW

[Zedark]

In December 2009 the three current home consoles (i.e Wii/360/PS3) sold a combined 6.48 million consoles, with the 360 coming in third with 1.31 million. Add into that the DS, PSP and PS2 and you had 10.78 million dedicated video game devices sold in one month.

Anyone think that'll ever be surpassed?

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No. That time period was the perfect storm where two systems (Wii and 3DS) reached hysterical levels of hype and sold to an incredibly broad audience, while other systems (PSP, PS3, XB360) were having incredibly healthy sales as well, along with the ridiculous legs of a previous gen system (PS2). That won't happen again. Nor does it have to for the industry to be incredibly healthy, of course.

 

[Aostia82]

John Harker said 280k without digital.

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thank you guys
I think that it is fair to assume that it is at 300k with digital.
This is with 200k (with digital) very likely in Japan.
And without EU market (where I don't think it is seeing HUGE numbers, but could still be relevant)
I don't want to put a number for an estimate or a guess, but seems tracking higher than previous entries and maybe 1 million LTD will be possible (considering how the used market in Japan didn't take off thanks also to the DLC plan going on).

It doesn't seem bad for a JRPG, am I assuming right? Apart from Final Fantasy, Pokemon and Dragon QUest (due to huge japanes numbers for this one), are there many other JRPG tracking WAY HIGHER than this? I know that Persona 5 exploded and reached 2 millions, am I right? Probably Tales of is able to register slighlty higher numbers.

How do people think this 280k w/o digital fares compared to other product in the genre?

 

[SinCityAssassin]

How do people think this 280k w/o digital fares compared to other product in the genre?

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If you want to make a top 10 of modern JRPGs that can sell a lot, Xenoblade 2 would at least make it into the list.

 

[legend166]

The market is normalizing and showing growth, that is not a decline.

I think your big mistake is equating hardware growth as the predominant factor for the health of the industry. Increase in hardware sales do not equate to increase in profit necessarily and a healthy industry is more than the hardware companies selling a lot of hardware.

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I get what you're saying, but every indicator shows us that less people are buying dedicated video game devices. There's clearly been a huge shift to gaming on mobile devices. Despite this, the top end of traditional video game industry has managed to flourish through a huge amount of consolidation as well as very successful long tail monetisation strategies and a shift towards finance driven game design.

I feel like commentary that just says "look at the numbers, the market is growing!" is missing the seismic changes that have taken place in the industry in the last 5 years and the context in which that growth has taken place (I.e mobile and GaaS).

Of course, a good rebuttal to all that is basically just questioning why even treat dedicated gaming devices and mobile gaming as separate entities, and there's probably a lot of merit in that argument but it's late here and I need to go to bed.

 

[Aostia82]

If you want to make a top 10 of modern JRPGs that can sell a lot, Xenoblade 2 would at least make it into the list.

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Thank you.
I'm really glad to hear this.
I think that Monolith soft acquisition was a very bold move by Nintendo and that their works are great.
I know that their Xeno saga is not Mario, but after having seen the first Xeno almost boycotted in the West (by Nintendo), and the second one (X) relegated to a failing console, it's good to see them being able to reach decent sales with XB2 on Switch

 

[AniHawk]

thank you guys
I think that it is fair to assume that it is at 300k with digital.
This is with 200k (with digital) very likely in Japan.
And without EU market (where I don't think it is seeing HUGE numbers, but could still be relevant)
I don't want to put a number for an estimate or a guess, but seems tracking higher than previous entries and maybe 1 million LTD will be possible (considering how the used market in Japan didn't take off thanks also to the DLC plan going on).

It doesn't seem bad for a JRPG, am I assuming right? Apart from Final Fantasy, Pokemon and Dragon QUest (due to huge japanes numbers for this one), are there many other JRPG tracking WAY HIGHER than this? I know that Persona 5 exploded and reached 2 millions, am I right? Probably Tales of is able to register slighlty higher numbers.

How do people think this 280k w/o digital fares compared to other product in the genre?

Click to shrink...

it's a really great number. especially considering the first game was on the wii in 2012 at a single retailer an the second game was a wii u title in 2015.

regarding europe, nintendo translated the game into french, it should do fairly well over there... but a good rule of thumb is go half of what the us did for your eu sales. so probably 150k minimum and up to 200k would be my guess.

 

[Deleted member 2791]

Probably Tales of is able to register slighlty higher numbers.

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I remember Tales of Zestiria did like 50-60k in its first NPD month so I kinda doubt that.

 

[Zedark]

it's a really great number. especially considering the first game was on the wii in 2012 at a single retailer an the second game was a wii u title in 2015.

regarding europe, nintendo translated the game into french, it should do fairly well over there... but a good rule of thumb is go half of what the us did for your eu sales. so probably 150k minimum and up to 200k would be my guess.

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Using that rule of thumb, we'd have 150k for Japan (end of year number), 280k for Xenoblade, and 150k for Europe, meaning around 580k sales for US + Japan + Europe, all without digital. 1 million sold through might be pushing it, but maybe they managed to ship 1 million? We'll see in two weeks, I guess.

 

[Deleted member 36622]

Semi OT

"Analyst says Nintendo might have sold 7 million Switch units in Oct-Dec globally, which would bring life-to-date figure at more than 14.6 million. Nintendo reports its 3rd FY-quarter results at the end of this month."

 

[Sphinx]

Do we know which one of the 3 came on top cummulative sales in Q4 (US, NPD)??

I think that the complete picture comparing the Oct-Nov-Dec period of all 3 players tells the real story.

 

[Deleted member 3017]

14.6 million Switch consoles sold in its first 10 months would be incredible.

 

[Brend]

In the end I'm actually surprised that Xenoblade 2 sold as well as it did. I mean, when you consider some of the factors at play, the game got some incredibly harsh critical reviews and has now tallied below the score of its predecessor Xenoblade X. In addition the Gacha mechanic at the core of the game is questionable at best, it clearly has some major performance issues running on handheld, and a lot of the UI/UX Design is a major step down from its predecessors too. And of course, it's likely it was rushed out to release which also impacted the game's polish severely.

Nonetheless, it managed to sell as it did in spite of all that. It definitely says something for sure. But I'd also surmise that Nintendo probably does feel pretty justified rushing it out for a Holiday release given the sales.

As a matter of fact, I'd completely overlooked that the game managed to chart on the Top 10 best selling Switch games of 2017:

Nintendo Switch**

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2. Super Mario Odyssey
3. Mario Kart 8
4. Splatoon 2
5. Mario & Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
6. ARMS
7. Pokken Tournament DX
8. 1-2 Switch
9. Xenoblade Chronicles 2
10. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

And that was only with one total month of sales

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Without derailing the thread, I honestly think I'm playing a different game when I hear about XC2's 'issues' in handheld. I've played the entirety of my ~20 hours so far undocked and the game is perfectly fine. If it's because the resolution is a bit low then I wouldn't say it impacts the gameplay at all. I did only get the game for Christmas though, so unsure how it was running prior to one of the patches being released.

On topic - Happy to see Xeno charting at least, it has potential to be one of my favourite JRPGs in quite some time. I'm not a huge anime fan but the characters are so endearing it's hard not to like them. Especially with the British VAs. Feels unique and most importantly...fun!

 

[AniHawk]

Semi OT

"Analyst says Nintendo might have sold 7 million Switch units in Oct-Dec globally, which would bring life-to-date figure at more than 14.6 million. Nintendo reports its 3rd FY-quarter results at the end of this month."

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good lord they would have outsold the wii u by a million units in 10 months. their 13 month total could beat 17m if demand holds up.

 

[Aostia82]

I remember Tales of Zestiria did like 50-60k in its first NPD month so I kinda doubt that.

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Thank you for the numbers.
what about possible ww sales? could be say without being too optimistic that is at least similar in term of sales potential?

 

[SinCityAssassin]

what about possible ww sales? could be say without being too optimistic that is at least similar in term of sales potential?

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I can only say it PROBABLY hit 1 million by this year. In Japan life time sales are below 450k and on Steamspy the PC numbers is in the ballpark of 460k, probably helped with discounts and humble bandai namco packs.

EDIT: oh you were talking about Xenoblade 2 not Zestiria lol

 

[Deleted member 2791]

Thank you for the numbers.
what about possible ww sales? could be say without being too optimistic that is at least similar in term of sales potential?

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I'd say that it's above mainly thanks to the western popularity of Xenoblade against the too-niche status of Tales Of. Zestiria did around 500k on steam but that's with being bundled in Humble Monthly, with extensives sales etc.

 

[Dash Kappei]

Its hard to judge where BF2 is at without digital. Maybe above Madden/NBA2k?

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It's missing PC (Origin exclusive) numbers, digital on consoles are counted.

 

[InquisitorAles]

Congrats to Nintendo and Microsoft for great showing! Thought it's depressing to see that all Bethesda's games except Skyrim switch port disappeared from charts

 

[AniHawk]

Thank you for the numbers.
what about possible ww sales? could be say without being too optimistic that is at least similar in term of sales potential?

Click to shrink...

a million isn't out of the question. here's the fuzziest of math:

us sell-through = 280k
canadian sell-through = 10% of us sales = 28k
north america sell-through = 310k (just being conservative)

europe = roughly half of north america = 150k

japan sell-through is probably almost 100% at 180k if they have run out of stock. 460k in the us and europe with good sell-through (let's say, 70%), is around 660k. so shipments could be around 840k. throw in digital sales at 10% and it's 920k. if digital sales are as high as 20%, then that's a million.

 

[Cipherr]

PUBG beasting
Mario Kart 8 living the life it should considering how amazing it is
All consoles doing decently overall
Decent bit of variety in the top 20


Good news all around.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Thank you for the numbers.
what about possible ww sales? could be say without being too optimistic that is at least similar in term of sales potential?

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Probably similar. Xenoblade is bigger than Tales in the West in pretty much every market but Tales is bigger in Japan. Steam added a lot of sales to the last Tales game though it was mostly through discounting.

 

[OfficerRaichu15]

So to look at sales of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Worldwide:
172k Japan(Media Create)
280k US(NPD)
15k Spain(HC)
20k UK(GFK)
489k total physical only.
Yeah it's passed 600k already probably.
Maybe 700k with digital.
Probably won't hit a million Shipped in Q3 but maybe Q4?

 

[Surface]

Well done Need For Speed Payback, best performing racing game of the month (outside of the beastly MK, of course).

Surprised GT Sport didn't even place in PlayStation's own top 10...

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Yeah people keep saying EA should quit the NFS series but its been the best selling racing series this generation. Critical reviews does not equal bad sales. The games are really fun

 

[Apex88]

Do we know which one of the 3 came on top cummulative sales in Q4 (US, NPD)??

I think that the complete picture comparing the Oct-Nov-Dec period of all 3 players tells the real story.

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Nov/Dec

PlayStation 2.77m
Xbox 2.745m
Switch 2.275m

Not sure about October.

 

[Aostia82]

thanks to everyone for the Xeno2 replies.

 

[Spine Crawler]

PUBG beasting
Mario Kart 8 living the life it should considering how amazing it is
All consoles doing decently overall
Decent bit of variety in the top 20


Good news all around.

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i dunno given the incredible numbers on PC i think 7th is a bit underwhelming. probably due to the bad port.

 

[fanboy]

Fifa isn't here because this isn't the european sales thread :p

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That actually explains A LOT :D

 

[Raguy]

So i wasn't far about Xenoblade 2 sales. ( i said 280K-300K )
Don't forget that Nintendo counts shipment + digital.
So 280K means that 10-15 % of stock was sleeping on stores end of december.
So i would say 30K for the stock.
310K shipments + 40-50K digital.
Around 350K in US.
For Canada, perhaps 8000 sales + 2000 are on stock retailers + 5000 digital.
So around 15K on Canada.
365K shipment + digital on Noth america ( USA + Canada ) is a reasonable prediction.
We can imagine a last shipment end of december in order to be ready for January, a month without a new first party game.
So we can imagine that retailers are thinking that Xenoblade 2 can have legs on January because next first party game ( bayonetta ) is for february.

On Europe, first shipment of Xenoblade 2 on France is 42K.
Even, if it sold less than 42K at december, nintendo counts shipment.
About digital, i am thinking about 8000, so 50K in total.
I am thinking about the same scheme for Germany. ( 50K shipment + digital )
UK, first week it sold 14K.
We can thinking 20K for shipment + 5000 digital.
So 25K for UK.
We know that it sold well in Spain around 15K
See here :

https://gonintendo.com/stories/298517-spanish-video-game-sales-week-46-data-xenoblade-chronicles-2

I we add stock on retailers + digital, i am thinking something around 20K
For Italy, we know that it was well pre-ordered on amazon italy.
Italy and Spain are equivalent market, so around 15K for Italy.

So around 150-160K for UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
That means something around 200K for Europe.

For Japan, 156K ( end of december ) for Media create.
I am seeing around 190K-200K shipment + digital for 31 december.

Others countries ( south america, Austrialia, Taiwan etc... ), perhaps 40-50K sales + 20-30K on stock retailers + 20-30K digital.
So 80-100K.

360+200+190+80 = 830

830K shipment + digital is a possibility for WW. ( 31 december )

And if Xenoblade 2 was more shipped, we can have a good surprise.

 

[Nephilim]

Good Battlefront 2 doing well.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

If you want to make a top 10 of modern JRPGs that can sell a lot, Xenoblade 2 would at least make it into the list.

Click to shrink...

1. Pokemon
2. FF
3. DQ
4. KH
5. Soulsborne
6. MH
------------
7. Persona 5
8. Nier
9. Fire Emblem
------------
10. Nioh
11. Ni No Kuni
12. Valkyria Chronicles
13. Tales
14. Xenoblade
15. SMT
16. Yakuza
17. SAO

Tried my best, might have missed some. JRPGs are usually limited by the 2 million barrier, though recently we've had several overcome it. The genre is showing promise.

 

[Ryng™]

280K at retail for XenoBlade 2 os freaking good.

With digital, it's easy well over the 300K i expected.

For a game like XenoBlade, this is a very good result.

 

[Ryng™]

7. Persona 5
8. Nier
9. Fire Emblem

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Persona above Nier and Fire Emblem? In what universe?

 

[Zedark]

1. Pokemon
2. FF
3. DQ
4. KH
5. Soulsborne
6. MH
------------
7. Persona 5
8. Nier
9. Fire Emblem
------------
10. Nioh
11. Ni No Kuni
12. Valkyria Chronicles
13. Tales
14. Xenoblade
15. SMT
16. Yakuza
17. SAO

Tried my best, might have missed some. JRPGs are usually limited by the 2 million barrier, though recently we've had several overcome it. The genre is showing promise.

Click to shrink...

Seems fair, you missed Yokai Watch, though. Not sure where it should go, though. The second game sold over 3 million just in Japan, but the third game was down a lot. Still, it's over 1.5 million Japan only, so I would at least put it in the same category as Persona, Nier and Fire Emblem, and maybe even in the top tier category, as it has the potential to sell above Soulsborne games.

Persona above Nier and Fire Emblem? In what universe?

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This is about sales ceilings, and Persona 5 sold over 2 million, so it makes sense (although I believe Nier should be above Persona 5 since it hit 2 million first).

 

[Lappe]

i dunno given the incredible numbers on PC i think 7th is a bit underwhelming. probably due to the bad port.

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I think it's doing beyond my wildest expectations.

-It's a new IP
-It's the only console exclusive on the list outside of Nindendo games.
-It was released in December

 

[Nocturnal]

Physical + Digital it's possible that PS4 sold over 10M software units this December. Since physical sales are 190% over the Switch and John mentioned that just the top 5 Switch games are around 3.3M.
X1 is probably also close to that considering it had the PUBG launch and it was 169% physical sales compared to the Switch. PUBG probably sold more digitally than physically so that would help MS catch up to Sony in terms of the total number of units sold for December digitally.

 

[allan-bh]

Xenoblade 2 had a good start, will not have the same type of legs as major Nintendo games have, but selling more than 1 million at some point must be good enough.

 

[Hero]

Calling Dark Souls, Nier, and Ni-Oh JRPGs seems like a big stretch.

Also something that needs to be taken into consideration is the fact that aside from Pokémon, the other big ones like FF and DQ have extremely long development cycles.

FFXIII - 2009
FFXV - 2016

DQIX - 2009
DQXI - 2017 (JPN only)

Kingdom Hearts 2 - 2005
Kingdom Hearts 3 - 2018 (maybe)

Persona 4 - 2008
Persona 5 - 2016/17

MonolithSoft has shown themselves to be a very useful and efficient studio, capable of juggling multiple projects of their own while assisting in art/asset creation for Nintendo's other big games.

 

[Bunkles]

Has there been any analysis on how some of the third party games are doing on Switch... namely Skyrim, LA Noire and Doom? Not really interested in raw numbers more speculation on if publishers are happy with this initial experiment.

 

[marc^o^]

it's a really great number. especially considering the first game was on the wii in 2012 at a single retailer an the second game was a wii u title in 2015.

regarding europe, nintendo translated the game into french, it should do fairly well over there... but a good rule of thumb is go half of what the us did for your eu sales. so probably 150k minimum and up to 200k would be my guess.

Click to shrink...

We know french day one shipments were 42K. By mid december, all shipments were sold, out of stock everywhere. I believe the game can be at 70K now, or by end of january with the next restock.

 

[OfficerRaichu15]

Also would DQ be considered one of the bigger franchises again? We haven't had a new DQ mainline since 2010? I mean we had spinoffs and remakes so I guess that counts.

In my opinion JRPG wise it's...
1.Pokemon
2.Final Fantasy
3.Kingdom Hearts
4.Persona
5.Dragon Quest
6.Fire Emblem
7.Xenoblade Chronicles
8.Tales of
9.Mario and Luigi?
10.?

 

[marc^o^]

Xenoblade 2 had a good start, will not have the same type of legs as major Nintendo games have, but selling more than 1 million at some point must be good enough.

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Persona 5 was at 1,5 millions after 6 months IRC.

 

[Principate]

Seems fair, you missed Yokai Watch, though. Not sure where it should go, though. The second game sold over 3 million just in Japan, but the third game was down a lot. Still, it's over 1.5 million Japan only, so I would at least put it in the same category as Persona, Nier and Fire Emblem, and maybe even in the top tier category, as it has the potential to sell above Soulsborne games.


This is about sales ceilings, and Persona 5 sold over 2 million, so it makes sense (although I believe Nier should be above Persona 5 since it hit 2 million first).

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That'd still be wrong since awakenings sold over that that amount. Way over that amount it was at 1.9 million in 2014.

 

[OfficerRaichu15]

That'd still be wrong since awakenings sold over that that amount. Way over that amount it was at 1.9 million in 2014.

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Yeah FE Awakening is probably around 2.3-2.5 Million.

 

[Zedark]

Has there been any analysis on how some of the third party games are doing on Switch... namely Skyrim, LA Noire and Doom? Not really interested in raw numbers more speculation on if publishers are happy with this initial experiment.

Click to shrink...

Mat said the following about third parties' performance on Switch in November:

Yes. However, without digital for Nintendo platforms it's tough to say just how well.



I think so... but again without digital, really tough to say.

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The first line is about 3P in general, while the sceond line is about Bethesda specifically.

 

[Deleted member 5167]

Bayonetta is my favorite JRPG series

 

[Deleted member 2791]

1. Pokemon
2. FF
3. DQ
4. KH
5. Soulsborne
6. MH
------------
7. Persona 5
8. Nier
9. Fire Emblem
------------
10. Nioh
11. Ni No Kuni
12. Valkyria Chronicles
13. Tales
14. Xenoblade
15. SMT
16. Yakuza
17. SAO

Tried my best, might have missed some. JRPGs are usually limited by the 2 million barrier, though recently we've had several overcome it. The genre is showing promise.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, no. Fire Emblem is easily above NieR and Persona, and so is Xenoblade now above Tales, Valkyria Chronicles and Ni No Kuni. I'd put MH above Soulsborne too, but waiting for the release of World to judge that is probably better.

 

[Joltik]

1. Pokemon
2. FF
3. DQ
4. KH
5. Soulsborne
6. MH
------------
7. Persona 5
8. Nier
9. Fire Emblem
------------
10. Nioh
11. Ni No Kuni
12. Valkyria Chronicles
13. Tales
14. Xenoblade
15. SMT
16. Yakuza
17. SAO

Tried my best, might have missed some. JRPGs are usually limited by the 2 million barrier, though recently we've had several overcome it. The genre is showing promise.

Click to shrink...

This list is missing Yokai Watch and the Mario RPGs which are usually bigger sellers than most of the titles on this list.

 

[wrowa]

How do Xenoblade 2 sales compare with Persona 5 and Nier: Automata?

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Persona 5 opened in the ballpark of 450k in April. It's a pretty astounding success. I don't know the numbers for Automata, but in its opening month it debuted a couple places above 1-2-Switch, which sold around 180k units. So, it likely opened at >200k. No idea by how much, though.

 

[cw_sasuke]

1. Pokemon
2. FF
3. DQ
4. KH
5. Soulsborne
6. MH
------------
7. Persona 5
8. Nier
9. Fire Emblem
------------
10. Nioh
11. Ni No Kuni
12. Valkyria Chronicles
13. Tales
14. Xenoblade
15. SMT
16. Yakuza
17. SAO

Tried my best, might have missed some. JRPGs are usually limited by the 2 million barrier, though recently we've had several overcome it. The genre is showing promise.

Click to shrink...

In what world are Souls game, MH or Nioh JRPGs ?

Pokemon, FF and Persona are the only strong relevant JRPG series in the west putting out numbers higher than what Xenoblade 2 sold so far.
The last great selling DQ game is nearly a decade old at this point, KH is obv. a great IP because of Disney but it hasnt been relevant in the console space for a longtime even though KH3 will obv. be massive.

Putting something like Ninokuni that had one good selling title ages ago above series that have been performing consistent for years like Fire Emblem or Tales of is a bit weird.

 

[Ryng™]

I think i'll do my list too:

1. Pokemon
---------------------------------- S tier
2. Final Fantasy
3. Dragon Quest
4. Kingdom Hearts
5. Monster Hunter
6. Souls games
7. Yokai Watch
8. Mario RPG (Though this is hard to put in a chart because some times they bomb and some times they are almost as big to be TOP 5)
----------------------------------- A tier
9. Nier
10. Fire Emblem
11. Persona
----------------------------------- B tier

All others are C tier or less.