New Wario series sales thread

Glowsquid

Mental midget
Diamond City Leader
Talking about sales is kind of boring for most people, but having this data is invaluable to understand the creative and business decisions of the actors in the game industry. And having not just the total sales, but the regional breakdown is useful too - Japanese developers are notorious for not giving the time of the day for series that are global sellers but have little domestic success.

Unfortunately because of the cloak and daggger bullshit of the video game industry, it's very hard to find reliable sales data, leading people to quote the (worse-than-useless) vgChartz or simply spew complete bullshit. But with a little luck and a *lot* of pointless sleuthing, I've been able to find hard data regarding the sales of Wario games, and since I have it, why not set the record straight?

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-The main organism for getting US sales data, the NPD, used to be very detailled during the Xbox/PS2/GB era, giving the top 150 for each system, the exact sales and even revenues for each title, but it drastically scaled back the data available at the start of the next generation. Now it doesn't even give sales data to non-subscribers beside vague milestones, and a subscription cost in the five digits.

-Finding European sales data is almost *impossible*. The closest European equivalent to NPD, Chart-Track never gave sales number, only positions.

-Japan is the last bastion for detailled public sales. Famitsu/Enterbrain publishes detailled top 20 data each week since 1995 and another organisation called Media Create does the same (or rather did; by late 2018, they started only posting the top 10 and dropping numbers). All of the Japanese data is from Famitsu unless said otherwise.

-Snapped!, DIY Showcase, Bird and Beans and Paper Airplane are excluded from the following because of their digital-only nature. The only way I could get data for those games is if a Nintendo employee gave them to me.

-Finding data for VB WL is hard due to the Virtual Boy's very low volumes.

-There is a distinction between "shipped" and "sold". Shipped means the copies were sold to the retaillers - video game publishers get money from this transaction but they obviously want the game to sold directly to consumers too so that retaillers order more copies, and don't get burned and refused to order more of your next game.

-This blog post by French video game journalist and sales expert Oscar Lemaire was a very useful starting point in getting the Japanese data for Wario games.

Now, them sales...

WarioWare Get It Together (since I assume most people are interested in reading about the newest game first first)

As reported in the CESA 2022 White Papers, it has sold 1.34 million units as of December 31 2022

-Anecdotally the game seems to have fairly low launch stocks and is not meeting demands. Multiple people reported the game selling out at specialized retaillers or gamestop reps telling them that they only had preordered copies in stock.

-The game launched #1 in the UK boxed charts, though it was noted that the game "did not need to sell a lot to get to the top" and "Its boxed launch sales are below that of Miitopia". For week 2, it dropped to 8th place, and week 3, it was 10th. Week 4 it was 17th.

-Sold 72,277 in Japan at launch, being the highest launch for a Wario game since Wario Master of Disguise. Famitsu reported it as selling a total of 179.345 physical copies as of December 19. Meanwhile Nintendo's investor PDF reports it as selling 300k copies in Japan as of January 1 (this certainly includes digital numbers).

-Launched at #3 weekly sales in France and Switzerland, 9th in Australia, 5th in Italy, #1 in South Korea. no numbers. Remained #3 in France for its 2nd week. Launched at #4 in Taiwan, remained in that spot the next week and was #5 for September 20 to 26.

-Was 2nd on its launch week in Spain, with a little over 4k copies sold. For the September 20 to 26 period it was 9th but I couldn't find hard numbers.

-The "News" tab for the Nintendo Switch home menu reported it as being the 2nd most-downloaded Switch game in all of Europe for September, being edged out by the digital-only Diablo II remaster.

-For the NPD (US) tracking period in September, the game was 15th overall and 2nd on Switch. It was noted that "WarioWare: Get It Together achieved the highest launch month sales for a WarioWare franchise release since WarioWare Smooth Moves in January 2007.".

Games that shipped over a million copy

(re regional breakdowns: US sales are NPD unless otherwise noted; I got the numbers from an old Nintendo World Report forum thread that reported NPD sales data. Japanese sales data is from Famitsu unless otherwise noted)

Nintendo actually provides on its quarterly reports whenever a game ships over one million copies worldwide. A NeoGaf user found Nintendo has PDF listing all million-selling first-party games and made a thread about it. I'm not going to repost the PDFs since you can just go there, but I'll recopy the data relevant to the Wario games.

(none of the following include sales of download copies)

Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land

-Shipped 5.10 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling Wario game and the 10th best-selling (first party?) Game Boy game

-Sold 1.59 million copies in Japan alone according to an old Tokyo Game Show slide, making it the best-selling Wario game in Japan

Wario Land 2

-Shipped 1.46 million copies worldwide

-Sold 260 733 copies in Japan

Wario Land 3

-Shipped 2.20 million copies worldwide

-Sold 254 968 in Japan

Wario Land 4

-Shipped 2.20 million copies worldwide


-Sold 484 591 in Japan

-Sold 719,055 in the US

Wario Land: Shake It

-Shipped 1.06 million worldwide

-Sold 114 263 in Japan

Wario Ware

-Shipped 1.10 million worldwide

-Sold 622 898 in Japan

-Sold 245,572 in the US

WarioWare Touched

-Shipped 2,47 million worldwide

-Sold 1 136 255 in Japan, making it the best-selling WW there and the 2nd best-selling Wario game in Japan after the original WL.

-Sold 332,334 by the third semester of 2005 in the US (figures from https://www.nintendojo.fr/public/v6/images/nouvelles/2005/11/charts-3eme-trimestre-2005.pdf), making it the #3rd best-selling Nintendo DS game by that time.

WarioWare Smooth Moves

-Shipped 2.36 million worldwide

-Sold 658 422 in Japan

-Quoteth Wikipedia: "The game received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[33] indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. "

Games that did not break the million barrier


Now this is getting interesting. All of these games did not ship a combined amount of one million worldwide, so they were not included in the above PDFs. NA and Japan sales data is still available for most of these games.

Wario World


-Sold 142 618 in Japan

-Sold 290k in the US by 2007, making it the 98th best-selling GC game in the US.


-Couldn't find hard numbers for Europe, but an old UK sales report stated that "the sales of [...] Wario World [...] could be considered disastrous."

WarioWare Mega Party Games

-Sold 400 785 in Japan

-Sold 136,825 in the US

WarioWare Twisted

-Sold 463 938 in Japan

-Sold 114,195 in the US (According to Oscar Lemaire in the above-linked blog post, it had sold less than a thousand in its opening month. That's some pretty good legs...)

Master of Disguise

-Sold 289 872 in Japan

-Sold 233k in the US by July 2011 (Source: leaked NPD numbers given to me by private correspondence)

WarioWare Do It Yourself

-Sold 187 404 in Japan

-launched #30 in the UK and didn't appear to stay on the charts (DS Archives - Page 391 of 862 - Nintendo Everything )

-Sold 100k in the US by July 2011 (same source as the Master of Disguise figure above). It seems the game was seriously overshipped too as it was quickly and massively discounted. A few years back, when Super Mario 64 DS still sold for $40 new, DIY was sold $5 new at Best Buy (mind you, this was before the NWN shutdown)

Game & Wario

-Sold 63 567 total in Japan according to Famitsu by the end of 2013, and 80k lifetime. Media Create has it at 70k.

-According to the NeoGaf "leaker" Creamsugar (who had a NPD subscription or something), the game had sold 36k in its first two months in the US.

-The game did not make the Top 40 in the UK when it launched- if you removed games in console bundles and bundled with accessories, it was #40. There's a distinct chance Game & Wario sold less than one thousand in the UK.


WarioWare Gold

-Launched at the #39 spot in the UK: dropped off the charts the next week... until January 2020 where it reached the 6th spot, entirely on account of UK retailler Argos clearing its 3DS stock for 6 euros (still worth noting it was the highest 3DS game on the chart). The week of Janaury 26 it was 18th
-Sold 1.700 copies in Spain by week 33 (source)
-Launched with 31.018 units sold in Japan. Sold 127.666/142.896/144.163 (media create, 2018/2019/20), 132.570 (Famitsu), or 138,024 units (Dengeki Online) by the end of 2018. It was the 2nd best-selling game of August according to Famitsu . It was also the 2nd most downloaded game on the eshop for its first three weeks. While this seems like a low total, it compares well to other 3DS games released at the time.

-Was the third best-selling 3DS game for the month of July according to NPD tracking (the tracking period ended August 4- the game launched August 3, so that's two days worth of sale. Also note that NPD does not include digital sales for Nintendo games). It did not make the top 20. For the August tracking period it was #2nd for 3DS but still not in the top 20, and was the #8th 3DS game for September. According to neogaf/Resetera insider (?) "Chris1964", it sold in the 40k-45k range from launch to early September. It did not make the Top 10 best-selling 3DS games for 2018 according to NPD.
--Digitally, it was #1 on week 1, #2 on week 2, #8 on week 3 (3DS eShop charts (8/8/18) - Nintendo Everything (1 on the chart) 3DS eShop charts (8/15/18) - Nintendo Everything (2 on the chart) 3DS eShop charts (8/22/18) - Nintendo Everything

So there you have it. If anyone reading this has data that's not listed above, I'd love to hear from you.
 
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I had the data for Mega Party Games but forgot to add it. It's in the OP now.

Wow... the sales for most of the WarioWare games are much lower than I did expect.

Yeah, one of my motive for making this thread is that on sites like neogaf and gamefaqs, you see people say "Oh, they stopped making Wario Land because WarioWare sells so much better". That's bullshit.

Wow those numbers are pretty sad. Even when Wario did good, he didn't do that good...

Wario is not a powerhouse franchise in term of sales, but the mario Wario Land games are (were?) good and consistent sellers. They've sold more than series with much more vocal following like Pikmin, Metroid, F-Zero (lol) and Fire Emblem pre-Awakening.
 
WarioWare Gold launched at the #39 spot in the UK according to the latest Chart Track stats. It was the best-selling 3DS game of the week and this counts only its first two days out in retail, but even with this and the fact the UK has always been a particularly bad market for the 3DS, that's really Not Good.

Its Japanese launch results will be available on August 8th.
 
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WarioWare Gold launched at the #39 spot in the UK according to the latest Chart Track stats. It was the best-selling 3DS game of the week and this counts only its first two days out in retail, but even with this and the fact the UK has always been a particularly bad market for the 3DS, that's really Not Good.

Its Japanese launch results will be available on August 8th.
I expect the game will sell better in the US since interest in Gold seems to be higher there. Not sure about Japan though.

One thing I believe I can say for sure is that the game will sell better than Game and Wario tho.
 
I expect the game will sell better in the US since interest in Gold seems to be higher there. Not sure about Japan though.

One thing I believe I can say for sure is that the game will sell better than Game and Wario tho.

Oh yeah, it certainly will (and infact probably already has, since as pointed out in the OP, G&W didn't even chart in the UK once).

I'm sure it'll sell the best in Japan as the series has always sold more there and the marketing push is far more serious (store stationery and TV commercials) than in western regions. JP market analysts aren't very bullish on the game, tho.
 
Well, it's a bit disappointing to see the UK sales. That said, I think a few things will have to be kept in mind here:

1. It's on the 3DS, and (as much as some people online like to claim otherwise), the console is on the way out and people know it. Very few 3DS games bar Pokemon have sold well in the last year or two, with the Mario & Luigi series having pretty bad sales figures since Paper Jam and other late titles not doing as well as they could have done on a newer system (think Samus Returns sold somewhat poorly for instance). By putting it out on the 3DS, Nintendo have hurt its sales a lot.

2. Marketing has not been too great here at the moment. Haven't seen any TV or print or real life ads, and online ads on UK sites aren't hugely common either. That's not great in the UK, where marketing money seems to be what decides a game's fate more than anything else, and where the Switch's success has been largely due to Nintendo actually advertising the thing.

Add this to the UK market not being hugely fond of Nintendo like the ones in the US, Japan and parts of Europe, and it's not surprising how it's done so far.
 
Well, it's a bit disappointing to see the UK sales. That said, I think a few things will have to be kept in mind here:

1. It's on the 3DS, and (as much as some people online like to claim otherwise), the console is on the way out and people know it. Very few 3DS games bar Pokemon have sold well in the last year or two, with the Mario & Luigi series having pretty bad sales figures since Paper Jam and other late titles not doing as well as they could have done on a newer system (think Samus Returns sold somewhat poorly for instance). By putting it out on the 3DS, Nintendo have hurt its sales a lot.

2. Marketing has not been too great here at the moment. Haven't seen any TV or print or real life ads, and online ads on UK sites aren't hugely common either. That's not great in the UK, where marketing money seems to be what decides a game's fate more than anything else, and where the Switch's success has been largely due to Nintendo actually advertising the thing.

Add this to the UK market not being hugely fond of Nintendo like the ones in the US, Japan and parts of Europe, and it's not surprising how it's done so far.
It’s honestly as if Nintendo didn’t have much faith in this game to do well in Europe, so they didn’t bother shelling out extra cash to advertise it. I remember before Game & Wario got released over here, it actually had decent marketing with multiple website ads and even advertisements which aired on television from time to time. After Game & Wario bombed in sales despite good marketing, it kinda feels like Nintendo completely lost faith in the series to sell well.
 
Very few 3DS games bar Pokemon have sold well in the last year or two, with the Mario & Luigi series having pretty bad sales figures since Paper Jam and other late titles not doing as well as they could have done on a newer system (think Samus Returns sold somewhat poorly for instance).

Samus Returns apparently did pretty well, by all indication: It was #10 in both the UK and US when it launched, broke series launch records in Spain and Yoshio Sakamoto said in a recent interview with a spanish video game website they were happy with the game's performance. Rest of your point still stands tho.

Ultimately, we'll have to see if Nintendo sees it the same way.
 
Its Japanese launch results will be available on August 8th.

Retaillers do post the sell-through % the week before: WarioWare Gold sold 20% of its launch allotment, which is the same proportion as Game & Wario's. But unlike G&W, Gold came out two weeks before Obon, a major holidays that drives video game sales, so it's not a bad result.

Edit: Also lots of people on reddit and the like saying their pre-orders gotp ushed back. It's selling better than G&W in the west at least.
 
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Media create results for the period up to August 12 are now up. WarioWare Gold is 5th with 19,138 units sold, which is not a terrible hold esp. when Obon starts the day after.

Some freaked a bit at the sales # in the main WarioWare Gold thread, but unless the game drops disastrously, there's a chance it'll outsell Game & Wario's entire Japanese lifetime sales by next week. That's good.
 
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