Source: http://kotaku.com/the-worst-japanese-sales-week-in-a-long-time-1706242144
Oh boy. The most recent video game sales numbers in Japan are not good. In fact, they’re bad. Very bad.
As blog Hokanko points out, the most recent Media Create sales figures—which date from May 11 to May 17—are the worst since 2001. This period was the week that followed Golden Week, a string of national holidays that sees people traveling, shopping, and spending money.
During the week from May 11 to May 17, a total of 235,000 video games were sold in Japan at retail. That’s a sixty percent drop in retail game sales from the previous week. Worse yet, it’s a 61.93 percent drop for the week when compared to the same time last year.
As Media Create explains, it’s typical for sales to be sluggish in the week that follows Golden Week. But these numbers are brutal. They’re so bad that Media Create says this is the most awful week of sales since 2001. (Note that Media Create, which has tracking sales since 1992, said the May 11 - May 17 week was the worst for the time period between 2001 and 2015).
Media Create explains that the reason for this huge sales stumble was a dearth of completely new games. Instead, there were loads of remastered and reworked titles. (Also, I think that the popularity of smartphone games and apps isn’t exactly helping traditional video game sales!)
