Super Mario Galaxy sells 251k its first week

by Eric Caoili { Nov 8th 2007 at 1:30PM }

We're not the type to equate a game's sales with its quality or our enjoyment of the title, but we're still a little disappointed with these low numbers for Super Mario Galaxy. Media Create, Japan's digital entertainment tracking service, reported that only 251,000 copies of Nintendo's high-profile platformer were sold in its first week of release.

While selling a quarter-million of anything seems impressive, let's, once again, compare that number with first-week sales data for previous Mario games and recent blockbusters:

New Super Mario Bros. - 900,000
Super Mario Sunshine - 280,000
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core - 486,659
Mario Party 8 - 265,000
Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen And The Tower Of Mirrors - 263,000

We expect Super Mario Galaxy to stay near the top of the sales chart until, at least, the end of the year, offering itself up to shoppers as the perfect holiday gaming gift. We fear, however, that Super Mario Galaxy's low numbers -- as well as Metroid Prime 3's and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess', for that matter -- may point towards a negative sales trend for epic/hardcore titles that Nintendo won't be able to ignore. Peek past the post break to see how other games fared in Japan this past week.

Media Create Sales 10/29 - 11/4

[WII] Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo) - 251,000 / NEW
[360] Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (Bandai-Namco) - 77,000 / NEW
[NDS] Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (Square-Enix) - 51,000 / 193,000
[PS2] Super Robot Wars Scramble Commander the 2nd (Banpresto) - 21,000 / NEW
[NDS] DS Literature Collection (Nintendo) - 18,000 / 72,000
[NDS] DS Nishimura Kyotarou Suspense Detective Series: Deadly Intent (Tecmo) - 18,000 / 115,000
[WII] Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 16,000 / 2,182,000
[NDS] Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day (Nintendo) - 15,000 / 676,000
[NDS] World Soccer Winning Eleven DS: Goal to Goal (Konami) - 15,000 / 44,000
[NDS] Pokémon Mysterious Dungeon: Time Expedition Party (Pokémon) - 14,000 / 552,000

Tags: media-create, platformer, sales, smg, super-mario-galaxy, supermariogalaxy

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ghen @ Nov 8th 2007 1:34PM

I'm still rockin' Guitar Hero, although I'll eventually get Galaxy

Alex @ Nov 8th 2007 1:55PM

It's actually only the first 4 days' sales (11/1 through 11/4). Still, if it really sold 130k units on its first day, that's a pretty sizable drop off, particularly considering the remaining days fell on a weekend, only moving about 40k units on each of the next three days.

Maybe Sunshine left a bad taste in everyone's mouths.

Adam @ Nov 8th 2007 1:58PM

soooooo.......how is this relevent if the game's street date is not until Nov. 13th? I see this artical as silly and uninformed.

Wedge @ Nov 8th 2007 6:27PM

I really hope Nintendo doesn't get to thinking they should abandon epic/hard core games. I like minigames and all, sure. But you've got to have balance.

Plus, the Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Starfox franchises are all based, at their core, on epic/hard-core games.

What fun are those franchises if they become solely small casual mini-game type fare?

Kogen @ Nov 8th 2007 2:30PM

I don't think it matters, Christmas will heavily boost this. And Nintendo games seem to sell well for years if they're good enough(Nintendogs, NSMB, ect.)

Cal @ Nov 8th 2007 2:09PM

Japan, my dear Adam, Japan.

a.j. @ Nov 8th 2007 4:13PM

@3. it's not talking about the American Release. Try reading.

Anyway, I'm one of the lucky people who own the game (JPN Wii) and it's amazing. Once people get a taste of it, it will sell through the roof.

Jay @ Nov 8th 2007 2:18PM

Hmmm.

I think it's a bit early for doom and gloom. There are lots of things that can affect sales. Give it time, I'm sure it will pick up.

J @ Nov 8th 2007 2:22PM

What kind of marketting is Nintendo relying on? Perhaps they should put some more $$ behind it like the $10 mil(I believe) that Microsoft put behind Halo3 which seemed to really pay off. Its not like they don't have the cash flow right now.

The only hype for this game seems to mostly be within the "gamer universe" and mostly via gaming magazines and/or relating to reports from E3 and similar expos which, alone, won't reach the "casual" crowd that the Wii itself is hyped for. They could at the very least put ads up on the Wii Shop channel, send out a Mario background for the Wii Home, or do something similar to Metroid week, but I have yet to see even just a tv ad featuring Galaxy. Maybe there are some that I haven't seen, but I do remember seeing ads for New Super Mario somewhat frequently which apparently did very well. It seems that they are simply relying on word of mouth and for the Wii-casual crowd to do their own investigating for info about the game and that is just not a realistic expectation to have.

They would certainly need to find the balance between marketing properly and shoving Mario down everyone's throats, but I can't help, but think that people, in general, would be in a better mood with more Mario around.

But alas, Adam is right in the sense that it hasn't even released here in the US yet. So, we shall see...

vidGuy @ Nov 8th 2007 2:31PM

No way will SMG be a low seller. It'll top 2 million before the end of the year and will probably sell 5 before the end of its life. Slow start doesn't mean it's dead, at least that's what Sony's been telling us ;)

troy @ Nov 8th 2007 2:36PM

What about the 600,000+ Japanese Pre-orders? It seems that this is not getting counted in with first week sales and also this seems like a game that hardcore fans of would pre-order. I mean: I did! So when we get the NPD data for the month will it finally include the pre-sales?

troy @ Nov 8th 2007 2:44PM

I mean it is sourced in news documents here in America that months ago SMG already had 400,000 US pre-orders from GameStop stores alone, which is more than double the supposed first week sales (first four day sales) of SMG in japan but I swear that when the pre-order numbers get counted the numbers will soar and people will realize what really happened: its 215,000 PLUS the hundreds of thousands of Japanese pre-orders.

vidGuy @ Nov 8th 2007 3:05PM

That's true, troy, and something gaming sites aren't picking up on. There were probably nearly 750k copies that went out the door. But "SMG sells well" isn't a headline, is it?

troy @ Nov 8th 2007 3:08PM

The sad part is no one will be blaming them all for misrepresenting things when the NPD numbers come back and first month sales of SMG are 700,000 higher than they have been reporting all month. It's funny that five months ago '600,000 Japanese Pre-Orders for SMG Well in Advance!' was an awesome headline and now that the game is here those same journalists have forgotten writing that and are now writing about its 'weak' first 'week' sales, which are still very impressive considering how now about one million japanese folks have the game.

James @ Nov 8th 2007 3:41PM

I know I'm an ethnocentric American, but appending "in Japan" to the headline *would* clarify things a bit.

troy @ Nov 8th 2007 3:54PM

Japan is the only place the game is out, so I don't see how it is so terribly unclear.

Kuchiki Ness @ Nov 8th 2007 5:02PM

MMMM, te official release is 16 NOV 07, so where do i get it!!!! maybe thats why more peoaple like me doesn't know that is already out??? and thats why the sales for now are low

the common cold @ Nov 8th 2007 5:14PM

Do the comparison numbers (Phantom Hourglass, NSMB, etc.) include the pre-orders then?

vidGuy @ Nov 8th 2007 9:00PM

@the common cold,

Yes, those numbers include the preorders because they are NPD/official PR releases of the totals. At least from my understanding - that's why this is such an apples to oranges comparison.

jp @ Nov 9th 2007 12:26AM

it's also about convincing casual gamers that if you like mario party or brawl or something then you're bound to like the more conventional titles like Super Paper Mario or Mario Galaxy.

D. @ Nov 8th 2007 11:06PM

Maybe sales would pick up if they actually advertised the game for what its worth. I've seen the one stupid commercial for the game one time. Marketing? What marketing. The commercials for Wii games are horrid. I'll buy this game without a doubt, but not everyone is as big of a Nintendo and Mario fan as I am. A good and epic commercial wouldn't kill budget or anything.

D. @ Nov 8th 2007 11:28PM

There's no way, as much as I love the Wii, that it will last that long. Technology develops too fast for it to be able to do that. The system was already older tech when it debuted. Who knows where it'll be in five years. I think he's just saying that, but I doubt he actually believes it. It makes no sense from a technical standpoint. HD is gaining momentum as far as I know. I didn't think I would own one for a while and I already have two. The Wii will need to be ramped up to keep going. If they don't release a brand new system, they'll just upgrade the current Wii which would be suicide because they would end up segmenting their fanbase.

Buntaro @ Nov 9th 2007 5:12AM

I don't really consider this game to be a hardcore title (or, for the matter, all 3d Mario games due to their lack of strong enemies, bottomless pits and a time limit. And before someone says I need to play said games more: I have all stars in SM64 and all Shines in Sunshine)so the rather low sales numbers surprise me.
All the media makes this look like a great game for families.
On the other hand I never enjoyed the 3d Mario games, so I hope this let's Nintendo reconsider their strategy for the next Mario platform game. NSMB sold really well, so it's not like people hate Mario or something.

The low Opoona sales numbers shock me a lot more to be honest. This "not Nintendo, not worth buying" mentality needs to stop ASAP.

vidGuy @ Nov 9th 2007 11:23AM

I guess the meaning of hardcore HAS changed. Mario is about the most hardcore franchise there is.

jpn @ Nov 9th 2007 11:56AM

I think the biggest burn on that list is the Mario Party 8 sales. For a franchise that everyone says is old, or why do they keep making these, etc. it's obvious why...cause people keep buying them!

Now if they'd just release new BOARDS and games into one frame instead of releasing sequel after sequel (Final Fantasy can do it, but...) that would be sweet. I love MP.