As you all know, Famitsu published the first week sales for Yo-Kai Watch 4 in Japan a few moments ago, showing that it managed to sell 157,210 copies in its first week.

How does that compare to past entries in the series? Unfortunately it’s not very good, in fact it shows there’s a decline in interest and sales.

At this time, Yo-Kai Watch 4 has the second worst launch in Yo-Kai Watch series history. The worst performing Yo-Kai Watch game at launch is the first original Yo-Kai Watch for Nintendo 3DS. It moved 52,901 copies but managed to sell 1.3 million in its entire lifetime.

If we compare Yo-Kai Watch 4 with more recently released titles, it seems there is a downward trend in both launch week sales and lifetime sales. Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Specters moved 1.2 million copies at launch and 2.7 million copies in its entire lifetime, but that dropped when Yo-Kai Watch 3: Sushi/Tempura opened with 581,000 copies in its first week and selling 1.5 million in its entire lifetime. Yo-Kai Watch 3: Sukiyaki, the final mainline title on 3DS, opened at 333,000 units and merely moved 768,000 copies in lifetime sales.

This doesn’t bode well for the franchise. Let’s hope Level-5 will find a way to turn things round again.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.