Pikmin 4 takes No.1 spot again in Japanese gaming charts

September in the Japanese gaming charts saw Pikmin 4 retain the no. 1 spot for the third consecutive month running as the highest-selling game in the country.

The latest figures showed that the Nintendo-published RTS title sold another 111,636 units in Japan in the last month. This brings Pikmin 4’s overall sales total since its release in July to an impressive 864,229 copies sold.

Mario Kart Deluxe took the No.2 position after knocking down the PS5 version of Armored Core 6 one place from last month. The FromSoftware developed game debuted at No.2 in August and came in at No.3 in September, with 39,845 copies being sold on PS5 throughout the month.

On September 22, Nintendo also launched a combined re-release of Pikmin 1 and 2. Since then the game has also sold well, selling 23,941 copies and taking the No.6 best-selling spot for the month.

There were a couple of other new titles to enter the charts in September. These included Konami’s Super Bomberman R2, which sold 16,021 copies and came in at No.12 in the charts, and the PS5 title Lies of P, which sold 10,145 copies and finished the month in the No.18 position.

In terms of sales figures in Japan regarding hardware, the Nintendo Switch was once again the best-selling console in September. The handheld console sold 307,447 units across its three versions, with the OLED model contributing the majority of the sales.

Settling for the No.2 spot again was the PlayStation 5, which sold 181,056 units across both its disc and digital editions. Sony will be looking to reclaim the No.1 spot this holiday season with the release of its new look ‘smaller’ PS5.

On the Xbox side of things in September, Microsoft finally reached an interesting milestone of a 500,000 player install-base in Japan for its Xbox Series X|S. This breakthrough was helped by the Sept 1 launch of the Carbon Black edition of the Xbox Series S, which significantly boosted Xbox sales in the region last month.