The newest Famitsu Most Wanted charts are out, and they paint a rather interesting picture of the games that the Japanese market is looking forward to. Square Enix, naturally, continues to rule the roost, with Final Fantasy 15 being at the top of the charts, and with Dragon Quest 11 taking third and fourth place for the 3DS and PS4 versions respectively.
But on the other hand, we are also seeing Square’s strategy of announcing games way ahead of time, and then going radio silent on them for a while until they are nearer release have a negative affect on the hype for some of the games on the charts- Persona 5, for instance, takes second place, and is ranked ahead of every Square game except Final Fantasy 15; Final Fantasy 7 Remake is at fifth place, and is almost certainly going to be overtaken by Pokemon Sun/Moon come next week. Kingdom Hearts 3 ekes in a 9th place finish, but is behind Zelda by a significant margin- and Zelda isn’t even all that popular in Japan to begin with.
Nintendo, on the other hand, are doubtless happy about these results- inasmuch as they are reflective of the broader market, they indicate that their upcoming games are going to perform strongly in Japan. Ahead of the launch of the NX next year, that is probably the best news they can hope for.
[Thanks Nintendo Everything]