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Zelda Is Dethroned By Pikmin 4’s Extraordinary Debut

• Jacob Chambers
• July 28th, 2023

Nintendo’s latest big release debuted well on Famitsu’s Japanese charts (via Gematsu) this week.

Pikmin 4 sold 401,853 copies in its first week, topping the charts. Rescue Corps’ debut is higher than Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Final Fantasy XVI, but it’s still far behind Tears of the Kingdom, which is in second place.

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening, the week’s other big release, debuted with 10,633 on Switch and 10,434 on PlayStation 4, placing fourth and fifth.

Otherwise, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Nintendo Switch Sports dominate the charts. Final Fantasy XVI fell from fourth to ninth this week, and last week’s silver medalist, Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist Of Salburg, fell out of the top 10.

Japanese software charts for this week:

1. [NSW] Pikmin 4 (Nintendo, 07/21/23) – 401,853 (New)
2. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo, 05/12/23) – 15,616 (1,775,035)
3. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04/28/17) – 10,749 (5,385,022)
4. [NSW] Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening (Koei Tecmo, 07/20/23) – 10,633 (New)
5. [PS4] Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening (Koei Tecmo, 07/20/23) – 10,434 (New)
6. [NSW] Minecraft (Microsoft, 06/21/18) – 7,512 (3,200,000)
7. [NSW] Splatoon 3 (Nintendo, 09/09/22) – 6,337 (4,066,350)
8. [NSW] Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo, 04/29/22) – 5,784 (1,131,645)
9. [PS5] Final Fantasy XVI (Square Enix, 06/22/23) – 4,904 (401,376)
10. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo, 12/07/18) – 4,844 (5,239,500)

After the week’s big release, software favors Nintendo again. The Switch OLED leads again with 47,940 sales, while Sony’s PS5 comes in second with 42,967.

As usual, combining both systems’ SKUs gives Nintendo 71,180 Switch systems to the PS5’s 46,561.

Full Japanese hardware chart:

1. Switch OLED Model – 47,940 (5,111,551)
2. PlayStation 5 – 42,967 (3,448,553)
3. Switch – 14,815 (19,457,768)
4. Switch Lite – 8,425 (5,425,864)
5. PlayStation 4 – 4,309 (7,890,166)
6. PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – 3,594 (544,802)
7. Xbox Series X – 1,078 (204,901)
8. Xbox Series S – 80 (268,669)
9. New 2DS LL (including 2DS) – 22 (1,191,950)