In regards to software market share value for March, a surprising publisher took the top spot in Japan thanks to a crossover game that put one of the most popular mangas ever in league with one of the most popular hack-and-slash genres of all time.
According to Famitsu [via Andriasang], One Piece Pirate Musuo skyrocketed Namco to the top of the software charts in Japan with more than 771,000 copies being sold of the new One Piece game putting them at more than 36% market share with software sales. This resulted in Namco Bandai actually beating out long time competitors Nintendo and Sega to take the coveted number one spot in both February and March, two months in a row.
The reason the newest game from Namco is so popular is because it combines the One Piece manga with the Dynasty Warriors style thousand-army battle mechanic, practically fusing two fan-favorite niches into one and creating a blistering storm of eye-watering sales revenue for Namco Bandai. In other words, the publisher knew how to please fans and not make them feel resentful, shamed or belittled like two other publishers whose names I will not mention here (we'll let Namco bask in the spotlight all their own for now).
You can check out the software share chart below which ranks the publishers between February 27th and March 25th. For more details feel free to check out the complete charts over at Andriasang.
• 01. Namco Bandai: 36.8%
• 02. Nintendo: 12.5%
• 03. Sega: 10.0%
• 04. Capcom: 6.9%
• 05. Pokemon: 6.3%
• 06. Konami
• 07. Tecmo Koei Games
• 08. Square Enix
• 09. Sony Computer Entertainment
• 10. Idea Factory
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