The Japanese games market has continued to show clear signs of positive growth in 2006, with another week in which three of the top ten games all sold over 100,000 units. Final Fantasy XII fell off steeply from its opening weekend, though, to register 237,678 units sold. In the end, FF XII was almost beaten by the latest Pokémon spin-off, Pokémon Rangers: Diamond-Pearl e no Michi which registered 193,337 units sold on its debut. Nintendo has marketed the game in conjunction not only with a new movie in Japan but also as a prelude of sorts to the forthcoming Diamond and Pearl role-playing game sequels, and it is expected to enjoy considerable sales for a number of weeks. The third placed title was the latest Ace Combat flight simulator from Namco which enjoyed a healthy 109,100 sales in its first week. This was followed by Animal Crossing: Wild World, which again added considerably to its more than 2 million lifetime-to-date Japanese sales with an extra 82,797 units sold. Koei’s latest Dynasty Warriors spin-off fared rather worse at number six, though, with just 54,360 units sold. In terms of hardware, the Nintendo DS increased its lead over the other formats with 159,293 consoles sold – 119,986 DS Lite and 39,307 of the original hardware. Thanks to Final Fantasy XII, the PlayStation 2 was in second place for the second week with 34,169 unit sold, perhaps affecting sales of the PSP, which sank to a recent low of 31,077 units. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold 10,608 units, followed by the GameCube with 1,458 units, and the Xbox 360 in last place as usual with 1,415 units.

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