Alright fellas, lets get some bets going before the big releases.
Wii Sports Resort: June 25, 2009 in Japan (Wii)***
Dragon Quest IX: July 11, 2009 in Japan (DS)**
Monster Hunter 3: August 1, 2009 in Japan (Wii)*
*has three skus - Black Wii + MH3, White Classic Controller + MH3, MH3 itself
** Edit: No HW bundle, but a new color DSiThere is a HW bundle, note that 290k KH 358/2 week one moved ~35,000 DS systems
*** Blue Wii-Motes and other controllers launch with Wii Sports Resort, and the game includes Motion Plus
Notes:
Wii tends to sell 15k/week in Japan lately
DS tends to sell 35k-40k/week in Japan lately
Dragon Quest games are the most reliable games in Japan. Dragon Quest VII, way back on the PS1 came out when the PS1 had its sixth birthday in late 2000. It sold over 4 million copies in Japan. Dragon Quest VIII on PS2 did 3.7m units after launching on PS2 in 2004, when the system was about 4 and a half years old. The PS1 game sold less week one and more life time than the PS2 game and I think there is consensus that DQVII was better than DQVIII. Preorders for Dragon Quest IX imply an opening at least at 1.6m, and up to 2.3m but its hard for me to narrow that range down as people still have time to preorder it, so I'm just going by where DQV was a month out from release.
Right, so here are my estimates. They will change undoubtedly as we get closer to release for the titles, especially Monster Hunter 3
Wii Sports Resort week one: 250,000. Wii HW WSR Launch : 55k (much improved, fleshed out sequel to a game with a huge following)
Dragon Quest IX week one: 2,000,000. DS HW DQIX Launch: 185k (alot of people in Japan only play DQ on game systems)
Monster Hunter 3 week one: 500,000. Wii HW MH3 Launch: 90k (~35k or more baseline from WSR, 20k bundles, 35k game boost)
As one final note, Capcom forecast 2.0m units shipped for MH3 in the year ending March 2010 and that includes a western launch in March 2010 supposedly. So I figure they expect ~1.5m shipped in Japan. To me that means they expect either a huge launch or the title to have legs. Can't see a MHP2G like launch, so I'm going with legs. 500k, 180k, 120k, 80k etc type legs for the game so thats still selling well for when Wii Fit Plus/NSMB Wii/Dec-Jan roll around to further push Wii HW and hold or lift key older titles.
So those are my projections. What are yours?
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
