All 30 of the best-selling games in Japan last week were on Nintendo Switch. It's the first time one company has occupied the whole chart since 1988.
Despite the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles late last year, the Nintendo Switch's popularity has remained. Following a boom in sales brought about by the start of the pandemic in 2020, the Switch's lifetime sales are now closing in on 90 million. It recently overtook the PS3 to become the seventh best-selling console of all time.
Its games continue to perform well too with titles like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons consistently in the top ten best-sellers across all platforms. Both of those games were naturally among Japan's 30 best-selling games last week. Nintendo continues to perform better in Japan than any of its competitors, as has been demonstrated by the aforementioned chart.
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The Switch didn't just occupy two of the 30 available slots via the games mentioned above, it took all 30. That's right, between August 2 and August 8, all 30 of Japan's best-selling games were for the Nintendo Switch. Minecraft was number one, followed by The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, and other popular titles like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Ring Fit Adventure a little further down.
According to Game Data Library, this isn't the first time one console has occupied all 30 of Japan's weekly best-seller spots. It is the first time it has happened for a while, though. The last console to do so was the Famicom, better known as the NES in the west, which achieved the feat in November 1988. Apparently, it was common for the NES, SNES, and Game Boy to dominate the top 30 in the '90s, but none of them ever filled every spot in the chart alone.
The news will come as grim reading for PlayStation and Xbox as both companies remain hopeful that their newest consoles will be the ones that tip the scales in Japan, especially Xbox. While there is still plenty of time for that to happen, the Switch breaking a record that has stood for more than three decades is likely a sign that Nintendo will remain the go-to for Japanese gamers for a long time yet.
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