Hot off the heels of the New Nintendo 3DS's launch in the west, Nintendo has announced that sales for both Majora's Mask 3D and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate have seen noticeable improvements compared to launch sales for the prior entries in their respective series - for Zelda, sales data for Majora's Mask 3D has nearly doubled compared to the latest Zelda launch A Link Between Worlds; while regarding Monster Hunter, sales have more than doubled compared to the last entry in west, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Due to the fact that Monster Hunter has been published by Nintendo in Europe, while the titles have been published by Capcom in North America, these numbers only account for the European sales; though Nintendo quotes in the same financial report -
"We have heard from Capcom, however, that the initial sales pace of "Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate," including the special-edition hardware with the title pre-installed, is more than three times as fast as "Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate" in quick estimation."...and the company notes that both Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate...
"had promising starts thanks to strong pre-orders and their highly-acclaimed gameplay. "Nintendo President Satoru Iwata went on to mention that he believes that the same "same-generation hypothesis" that he previously used to explain Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire's success may well prove a factor to both Majora's Mask 3D success in particular; as the same individuals that were excited for the game's prequel (Ocarina of Time) could be the ones buying this title. As for both Monster Hunter and Majora's Mask's critical acclaim - Iwata highlighted this, but no conclusions were made from these scores.
Both Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D launched last Friday, February 13th, alongside the New Nintendo 3DS. TechRaptor's reviews for both titles can be found here and here.
