Japan Charts: Sonic Frontiers Becomes Fastest-Selling Mainline Game in 20 Years

Sonic Frontiers has smashed series sales records in Japan, with today's Famitsu charts reporting that the blue blur's latest adventure has racked up a total of 46,276 unit sales across all platforms. It's the highest a Sonic game has ever sold in its opening week since Sonic Adventure 2's original release on the Dreamcast.

The latest Japanese sales chart, provided by Famitsu (via Gematsu), shows the Nintendo Switch version of the game performing best, selling 26,067 units and hitting #4 in the Top 10 chart. The PS5 version comes next, reaching #7 with 11,111 unit sales, followed closely by the PS4 version at #8 with 9,098 unit sales. 

We've crunched the historical Famitsu chart numbers, and the performance is seriously impressive - discounting spinoffs like the Mario & Sonic series, Frontiers is the biggest-selling mainline Sonic game since 2001 (Sonic Adventure 2 on Dreamcast opened with over 84,000 sales).

It has also absolutely destroyed the week-one total sales of Sonic Forces, which managed only a pitiful 10k sales in 2017. Not only that, but between 2001 and 2022, Frontier's total week-one sales is a multitude of times greater than the mainline average, with Lost World and Generations' Japanese opening weeks managing an average of around 5k units.

Sonic Team spent a good long while crafting this game, and SEGA Japan has made a huge effort with its marketing strategy worldwide. It seems that, on the back of positive critical reception and huge fan interest, the effort is paying off.

Full chart below.

1. [NSW] Splatoon 3 (Nintendo, 09/09/22) – 43,781 (3,331,197)
2. [NSW] Tactics Ogre: Reborn (Square Enix, 11/11/22) – 36,783 (New)
3. [PS5] God of War Ragnarok (SIE, 11/09/22) – 29,377 (New)
4. [NSW] Sonic Frontiers (SEGA, 11/08/22) – 26,067 (New)
5. [PS4] Tactics Ogre: Reborn (Square Enix, 11/11/22) – 12,668 (New)
6. [PS4] God of War Ragnarok (SIE, 11/09/22) – 11,260 (New)
7. [PS5] Sonic Frontiers (SEGA, 11/08/22) – 11,111 (New)
8. [PS4] Sonic Frontiers (SEGA, 11/08/22) – 9,098 (New)
9. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04/28/17) – 8,025 (4,899,259)
10. [PS5] Tactics Ogre: Reborn (Square Enix, 11/11/22) – 7,805 (New)

Thanks to MASB for the tip.