Sunday, March 11, 2018

Feature: Taiko Sales Figures Comeback - The Digital Share


This is a sequel feature to our first overall look at the general sales figures in Taiko no Tatsujin games, where we took a look at the accountable physical software sales from every Taiko no Tatsujin title that has been made, up to the Ps Vita trilogy.

One big hindrance to our former researching efforts was the incapability to supply a consistent look at the overall sales of the more recent games in the series, as digital downloads have become a sizable feature for modern Taiko gaming and many sales figures usually don't incorporate the digital sales with the physical versions. As the interest for digital sales data has increased in the past few years and more platforms over the Internet have risen up to account the newborne share of the gaming market, we've come back to update the overall figure sales of the more recent Taiko titles, starting with the first games with accounted digital versions (the 3DS trilogy) and ending up with the PS4 Taiko addition as an overall newcomer to our research.

Together with the sources credited by us on our first sales research feature, we want to give a shoutout to the Game Data Library, a website which has gathered both digital and physical sales data for the Japanese market's videogame sales, with the digital figures being based on Famitsu's Digital Top 30 and the PlayStation Store Estimates.

DISCLAIMER: As the digital sales figures aren't recorded for games that don't manage to become top-sellers on the Famitsu charts, the digital section for all games will also report the period of time without any data updates from the most recent data reveal to this post's original publishing data, March 11th.

It's also important to remember that our source only deals with the Japanese videogame sales, so we're left with nothing once again for the alternate-language versions of many of the Taiko titles being listed below.

Nintendo 3DS Games
Taiko no Tatsujin Chibi Dragon to Fushigi na Orb boxart

Taiko no Tatsujin Chibi Dragon to Fushigi na Orb

Physical
First Week sales - 63.388
LTD sales            - 590.132

Digital
Sales Figures Unknown

Global LTD sales - ~590.132

Taiko no Tatsujin Don to Katsu no Jikuu Daibouken

Physical
First Week sales - 62.247
LTD sales            - 275.543

Digital
LTD sales - 9.256
Months Without Data: 3

Global LTD sales - 284.799

Taiko no Tatsujin Dokodon! Mystery Adventure

Physical
First Week sales - 35.465
LTD sales            - 149.630

Digital
LTD sales - 2.742
Months Without Data: 5

Global LTD sales - 152.372

Starting with the 3DS Taiko games, we can see how the sales of the three games have been slightly increased over time from our first look, with the lifetime sales for Dokodon! Mystery Adventure being doubled overall. Be it for the novelty factor of the digital purchase function or the second 3DS game's long-lasting impact, Don to Katsu no Jikuu Daibouken is the biggest seller of the trio on the digital front, nearing the 10.000 purchases.

As for the first title, its digital version never made it to the top sports of any of the Japanese market's publicly-released digital charts, so we don't know the kind of impact it had for that game, as well for other similar cases we're going to discuss later on.

Nintendo Wii U Games

Taiko no Tatsujin Wii U Version

Physical
First Week sales - 17.518
LTD sales            - 179.818

Digital
LTD sales - 1.479
Months Without Data: 1

Global LTD sales - 181.287

Taiko no Tatsujin Tokumori

Physical
First Week sales - 11.769
LTD sales            - 78.291

Digital
LTD sales - 493
Months Without Data: 11

Global LTD sales - 78.785

Taiko no Tatsujin Atsumete★Tomodachi Daisakusen

Physical
First Week sales - 11.989
LTD sales            - 45.166

Digital
Sales Figures Unknown

Global LTD sales - ~45.166

With the Wii U titles, we've spotted the biggest data discrepancy with the sources that we've consulted for the preparation of the former sales feature, as the lifetime overall sales for both Tokumori and Atsumete★Tomodachi Daisakusen appear to be lower than the values detected as part of our first findings.

It doesn't help the release period of these two titles either: being November-launched games, the Wii U games' release date had to compete with other Christmas contenders, resulting into very little sales data overall for the digital side. Once again, being on arguable the least-selling console of its time, didn't help, either...

PlayStation Vita Games

Taiko no Tatsujin V Version

Physical
First Week sales - 46.101
LTD sales            - 102.758

Digital
LTD sales - 9.814
Months Without Data: 4

Global LTD sales - 112.572

The iDOLM@STER Must Songs Red Album / Blue Album

Physical
First Week sales - 23.349
LTD sales            - 24.453

Digital
LTD sales - 2.665
Months Without Data: 0

Global LTD sales - 27.118

As V Version didn't make it to the physical top charts since our first overview, the situation hasn't been changed that much since then, with its accounted digital share becoming the highest yet accounted for a Taiko no Tatsujin game. Once again, we also had data conflicts for the figures of the two Idolm@ster games combines, with the overall LTD data resulting lower to the Game Data Library than our first recovered value from other sources.

PlayStation 4 Games

Taiko no Tatsujin Session de Dodon ga Don

Physical
First Week sales - 28.245
LTD sales            - 59.824

Digital
LTD sales - 6.795
Months Without Data: 1

Global LTD sales - 66.619

Last in line is the the PS4 Taiko debut game, which has already managed to outsell the final Wii U title in roughly 5 months! It's also the home console game with the highest digital share to date.