LittleBigPlanet Vita Not so Big: Japan's 50 Best-Selling Games by Media Create (Week of Sept 23)

Reporting the top 50 best-selling games in Japan last week, GR says: "My friend assured me that LittleBigPlanet would match the Vita selling power of Hatsune Miku in Japan. I doubted this, and told him as much. I would have loved to see some news proving me wrong -- to see LBP top the sales charts with 200,000 copies sold in its first week. I didn't see that. What I did see in this sales chart for the week of Sept. 17th through Sept. 23rd, was Square Enix making more dough off of ports, and LittleBigPlanet selling less than 6,000 copies. In the great majority of cases, software sees about a 50-70% drop in sales from week on to week two in Japan, so that means that after two weeks on the market, all signs are pointing to this outstanding game shifting less that 10,000 units in Japan. As usual, all results below are via Media Create."

[LX-General-Kaos]

That is most unfortunate and I wish them the best of luck

[knifefight]

Seriously. This machine has some great games. As a gamer, it saddens me to see them just not able to leave the shelves. Only 5,900 for the opening week of LBP Vita? -_-

[LX-General-Kaos]

I honestly dont understand it either. I would blame it on low Vita sales, but other games have come out the gates with massive numbers on the platform. I guess LBP is just not their cup of tea.

[SAE]

i would love to buy it , it's just that i don't have enough money to buy vita games right now ...

i prefer buying ps3 games , then after i'm finished with them i will buy vita games just like how i bought the vita.

[Tito08]

Actually is the fact that Little Big Planet is a western game.. even if it says "SCE" attached to it, it won't sell because of its western roots.. Sony should have known that for years, look at how the 360 did in Japan, even if it had exclusive JRPGs, still didn't help the console... I'm not saying all Japanese gamers wants JPS developed games, but the great majority do. Japanese gamers wants their Japanese games. Sony should acquire more Japanese devs now that they shut down 2 of their western studios, & stop bothering localizing their games when they know they won't sell over there. Sony can't be this f$^%^ng stupid.

[Nimblest-Assassin]

Well its Japan, they have.. for better words a "unique" taste in games

I think sony really isn't appealing to the Japanese when it comes to the vita. They are going for the western crowd with Assassins Creed and Cod, Killzone, etc, and they really dropped the ball with COD... AC looks amazing though

The vita is capable of great things... I mean if Ubi could bring AnvilNEXT onto vita, other devs can also do great things

Its not really surprising it's not doing well in Japan... but its still a damn shame

Honestly if Capcom supported the vita, as well as they do the 3ds... the vita would sell better in Japan.

Sony needs to bring their A game, and provide games that make people want to buy it.

Nintendo can pretty much have a Mario/Zelda, and their systems will do well due to the sheer strength of their IPs, but they are getting great third party support from Sqaure (KH3d) and really a lot from Capcom.

Sony needs to do more... they need to get the games the Japanese gamers are interested in. Not COD, or Assassins Creed. Monster Hunter, Resident Evil... watch RE6 sell very well in Japan

Sony needs Capcom support for Japan, because how Capcom is treating the vita is abysmal at best

3DS

Street Fighter 4 HD
RE Revelations
Monster Hunter 4
Pheonix Wright 5
Pheonix Wright vs Prof Layton

Vita
UMVC3 remake
Street FighterXTekken remake

Sony needs to stop advertising the vita as something that will compete with the wiiU, and instead focus on bringing more games to the platform. There are lots of new IPs, and they need to advertise those, Soul Sacrifice, keep advertising that in Japan, and make sure everyone knows Keiji Inafune is working on it... bundle it in Japan, and it will do well

It really is a shame... AC: Liberation is the only vita game Im looking forward to this year, (my excitement for PSABR was stunted because of no more new characters)

Its a great handheld, and it deserves sales... sony just has no idea what they are doing with it

They need to take a page from nintendo's book, and bring the games that will attract people to their console

Nintendo knows what they are doing... sony has no clue

And to me.. thats frustrating as hell

[Muffins1223]

Not allot of vita's bought=low game sales

Sad :c
But I bought a vita a week ago and brought it to my high school and i convinced 5 people to buy it just from seeing it.If more people got it they would realize its amazing

[kupomogli]

@Nimblest-Assassin

Agreed for the most part. Super Street Fighter 4 is rather "SD" not HD, and just like the two Vita games, it's also a port.

I do want to make a comment about you mentioning PSASBR, though. They stopped announcing characters, yeah, but how many new fighting game franchises start out with 20 characters or more? Other than Rival Schools and King of Fighters, I don't think there are any.

You have to think. There's always potential to bring out a sequel to a series, especially a fighting game series. If they were to add all first party characters and third party characters everyone is interested in in one go, then there's no future potential to make a sequel, so no more money. Also the more characters, the more time it takes to balance the gameplay.

The only thing I'm pissed off is third party characters at all. The only four third party characters introduced are nothing more than advertising. I would have rather had no third party characters at all, so just 16 characters for the first game, rather than being lied to about how they'll consider getting fan favorite third party characters in the roster and it didn't happen.

I'm still getting thet game though. After playing the beta it sold me on the game.

[Benjamminkno]

Japan doesn't like American made games because they're arrogant and view us as inferior. It doesn't matter how good the game is, supporting American made products is laughable to them.

[MaxXAttaxX]

It's at #17 out of 50. That's not bad at all, considering it is the TOP Western handheld game sold on the list.

And while LBP games in general don't have the highest numbers in JP, I expect to see it do better worldwide.

On another note, while the fanbase in Japan is smaller, they've also made some of the best levels in the LBP community.

[Vitalogy]

It is unfortunate but at the same time it's sony's fault. Consumers, Vita gamers like me, have been saying since the beginning that the Vita games prices are way too high but they keep pushing 'em at €50. I bought ps3 games on amazon.co.uk for £10~£12, of course I'm not buying them at launch but most of them I don't even need to wait too long to grab at those prices.

Lower the price of the Vita games sony, from the launch, and you'll see them fly from the shelves. Launch games between €15 to €25 and then we can talk.

Seeing games on the PS Store being sold at €40 for the Vita makes me go crazy. It's not just PR's that need lay off's, it's almost the entire structure, the problem comes from way above not under.

[NBT91]

Yes I agree the expense hole of owning a Vita is what made me sell mine, and that was just before LBP released too!

I love Sony and the PS3, but the Vita is just a weird console. Not only does it have some odd design choices and stupid proprietary crap all over it. The games choices are 1)way too expensive, even with cross buy announced and 2) seem to have been chosen by somebody who has no idea of the concept of portable gaming.

Did they not even stop to think about WHY games like Temple Run on the iPhone got so popular?

I mean for me, I have a PS3 and TV in my room, so I am never going to want to sit there and play KillZone, Uncharted or even LBP on a small portable screen when I can play them in 3D on a proper TV with proper controls.
It seems to just be a PS3 that you hold in front of your face, it needs games that I can quickly jump into and play on the train journey I take every day, not to mention the whole unit is just bulky.

That is my take on it anyway - I honestly feel like they tried to do too much with the Vita and lost their direction with it in the end. I hope they bring out a redesigned model sooner rather than later...

[Jazz4108]

I think alot of issues play into this but for me its about the stigma of being an adult carrying around what amounts to a toy to most people. I will continue to keep my smartphone with me as it does alot more then vita and does not bruise my psyche.

[ChronoJoe]

None of the LBP games sold very well in Japan.

[NBT91]

That still does not change the fact that this one didn't either. Is it okay that Sony / MM just shrug it off and say "Meh, that is to be expected, our games never sold well there."

To be fair I imagine that their new IP on the Vita will be more popular in Japan.

[ChronoJoe]

Well yeah it's sort of okay to shrug a games performance off when it wasn't targeted at that market / audience.

No one questions why Halo doesn't sell well in Japan either. Regardless of marketing they're not interested in heavily-westernised products, typically.

Making changes to the JP version of the game might help, removing Steven Fry and replacing him with someone Japanese people can relate to would be a good start.

[Knushwood Butt]

All LBP games have sold poorly in Japan.

It's nothing to do with luck.

Also, you are blatantly trolling. Maybe the mods won't turn a blind eye this time.

[LX-General-Kaos]

Don't worry lad, I am sure LBP will sell just fine in other regions.

[Knushwood Butt]

Thanks, but I'm not worried.

Don't own the game myself, but I hear it's good.

[MaxXAttaxX]

That's not bad at all, considering it is the TOP Western handheld game sold on the list.

And while LBP games in general don't have the highest numbers in JP, I expect to see it do better worldwide.

On another note, while the fanbase in Japan is smaller, they've also made some of the best levels in the LBP community.

[ftwrthtx]

Ouch!

[Snookies12]

Man that's lame! The game is fantastic... I just don't understand Japan when it comes to games, I really don't...

[TerminalGamer]

I love the game. Its use of the touch controls make it the best LBP to date.

[Snookies12]

Definitely agree! The touch screen adds so much to LBP. Plus the fact that you can download user levels to play anytime offline. That's just a wonderful addition.

[Godchild1020]

The PSP version didn't do well at all in Japan either, so its no surprise. It should do well in Europe, US and the rest of the world.

The first LBP was the only game to well on it first week on sale in Japan.

[Anon1974]

Actually even the first didn't do that well in Japan. It ended up selling maybe 150,000 in Japan compared to about 2.5 million in the US. LittleBigPlanet 2 was also completely ignored in Japan and LittleBigPlanet on the PSP I don't think even broke 10,000. If you think LBP Vita was going to race to the top of the charts in Japan, you just haven't been paying attention.

Of course, don't let that stop you from running a negative headline. You could have just as easily pointed out that the number one game in Japan is Final Fantasy 3 on the PSP, which is pretty incredible when you think about it, or the staying power of Super Mario Bros 2 on the 3DS. But hey, why not run a headline about a game that traditionally does nothing in Japan still doing nothing in Japan. To each his own.

[dark-hollow]

a sever lack of lolis may contributed to this.

[boybato]

that's unfortunate considering that i see a lot of potential from levels/app made by the Japanese community.

matter of fact here's a clear example:

http://vita.lbp.me/v/qyme

[Ben_Grimm]

Has it released in America? How is it doing here?

Was LBP a hit in Japan? I mean if it wasn't then I don't see why the Vita version would be too.

[NovusTerminus]

It has come out in the US. But we don't do weekly sales charts... Or at least I've not seen them.
So we won't know how it did over here for a while.

And LBP's first games ranked high up, but none following it (Not even the PSP) game ever ranked in.