Wow, everything dropped really hard, As it was mentioned, Death of the industry and taxes.

Also, I wasn't expecting a ton from Natural Doctrine, but about double what it did from each version.

Wow, everything is terrible. Enjoy your mobile games Japan! Because that's all you're going to be getting soon.

Not looking good for PS4 but that's ok because it doesn't really need Japan anymore to make a splash in WW sales. I'll start to worry when it constantly sinks to WiiU levels. As long as it stays above it will catch it one day :)

Natural Floptrine :(. At least we're getting it in the west, which is all I can ask for at this point!

3DS & Vita stayed slightly better than I was expecting. I was thinking about the 30k and 20k mark for both, but they're a fair bit off that.

Home consoles, however, slightly worse than I was expecting. Oh well.

Uneventful week. Bleh. Bring on Super Robot Wars.

HW mostly disappointing, although Vita did alright (PS4 most certainly did not, however). SW wasn't great either, Natural Doctrine underperformed (which is a shame, it looks alright, if quite challenging)

SW4 is interesting. It's at 192+69k = 261k, which is better than SW3 on Wii (155k after 2 weeks). Still down significantly on SW2 (430k), but I think it that isn't too bad.

It also reinforces the fact that the musou fanbase is undeniably on Playstation. This is why I can't see Zelda Musou doing well - it may have the Zelda name, but it's fundamentally a musou game. Unless they break significantly from the formula, I doubt Zelda fans will take to it because it's so different to other games in the series, and musou fans won't buy it because it's not on their console of choice. Still, the strength of the IP might carry it, and I doubt it will be particularly expensive to produce

The hell? We have 13% sales tax on everything forever here.

And people blaming on a 3% increase to 8%?

Did people forget games sell consoles again?

I was too, not very strong ones, but a little better.

Sales anywhere inevitably drop across the board (but especially for luxury items) after a tax increase.  The last time Japan saw a tax increase like this I believe was in the 90s after the real estate bubble popped and their economy essentially collapsed, and couple that with the fact that this is merely the first stage of the tax hike in that October of next year the sales tax goes up two percent more to an even ten, thereby doubling in under two years, it's only natural for people to be more careful and concerned about their money.  

Awful numbers all around. PS4 in dangerous grounds, which is not surprising...

@ bold, need more comparisons :D. But really I think you are right in that it is not too bad considering SW4 mostly sells to home console owners and the PS3 is dieing in Japan. While SW2 released at a very good time on PS2, even before PS3 was released. SW seems to still have a very strong fanbase, even after two generations.