Pokemon Dominates Japanese Games Charts

The release of the first iterations in the core Pokemon series on the Nintendo DS have had their expected impact on the Japanese game charts, following large overnight queues and an almost total sell through of initial stock. A combined total of 1,588,734 copies of the games were sold in the first four days. As usual the two titles differ only in terms of unique Pokemon in each, in order to encourage trading, and even committed fans are not expected to buy both. The launch is the most successful yet for any of the Pokemon titles in Japan, although, even given the lack of stock in this instance, the Pokemon games do not generally have as large an opening as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest – instead selling more evenly over a longer period of time. The record for the largest opening for any title in Japan is Final Fantasy VIII on the PSone with 2,504,044 copies sold. Elsewhere in the chart Namco Bandai’s latest .hack title has performed extremely well, with no sign of any declining interest in the franchise. There has also been a relatively strong debut from another title in Touch Generation! series at number six, in this case a Kanji dictionary and quiz game. The final new entry in the top ten is the latest in Koei’s The Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy series. Just missing out on being the first Xbox 360 title to ever appear in the Japanese top ten is Capcom’s Dead Rising at number twelve, which is also notable for the being the first high profile game to be rated Z, for ages 18 and up in Japan. Unlike the other CERO age ratings in Japan the Z rating is government regulated, which has had an impact on point of sale advertising in many Japanese stores. As expected the release of the Pokemon games has seen a boost in Nintendo DS sales, at 274,642 units. This was well ahead of the PlayStation 2 at 31,992 units and the PSP at 25,319 units. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold 2,924 units while the Xbox 360 saw only a mild increase in sales, despite the release of Dead Rising, to 2,195 units.

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