The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Debuts on Top of Japanese Charts with Stellar Launch Sales

Selling over 1.1 million physical units in Japan upon release, Tears of the Kingdom is Zelda's best ever Japanese launch to date.

Posted By | On 18th, May. 2023

the legend of zelda tears of the kingdom ganondorf

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was the biggest new release last week (and the entire year), and the level of critical and commercial success it has enjoyed has been staggering. The open world behemoth sold over 10 million units worldwide in three days, becoming the fastest-selling Zelda game to date, and it has, as you’d expect, enjoyed similar success in Japan as well.

With over 1.1 million physical copies sold at launch, it has topped Famitsu’s latest weekly charts for hardware and physical software sales in Japan. Its total Japanese launch sales stand at over 2.4 million units, which means more than half of its sales were digital. Meanwhile, it’s also enjoyed the best ever Japanese launch for a Zelda game to date.

Its predecessor, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, has seen a slight increase in sales as well, and sits at No. 3 in the software charts with over 7,000 units sold over the course of the week. The entire top 10 is, in fact, dominated by Switch titles with the PS4 version of Hogwarts Legacy at No. 6 being the only non-Switch game in the charts.

On the hardware front, the Switch is once again the best-selling console of the week with over 83,000 units sold, with the PS5 following behind by quite some margin, having sold over 41,000 units.

You can check out the full hardware and physical software sales charts for the week ending May 14 below.

Software sales (followed by lifetime sales):

  1. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – 1,119,502 (New)
  2. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 9,794 (5,293,478)
  3. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 7,335 (2,182,171)
  4. [NSW] Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe – 6,819 (426,789)
  5. [NSW] Pokemon Scarlet and Violet – 6,420 (5,028,722)
  6. [PS4] Hogwarts Legacy – 6,384 (38,302)
  7. [NSW] Minecraft – 5,704 (3,135,953)
  8. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 5,061 (5,190,681)
  9. [NSW] Splatoon 3 – 4,856 (4,014,693)
  10. [NSW] Mario Party Superstars – 3,746 (1,230,382)

Hardware sales:

  • Nintendo Switch – 83,052
  • PS5 – 41,444
  • Xbox Series X/S – 275

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