Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending November 7th

The Japanese games market has experienced one of its most tumultuous weeks all year, with the release of the new look PlayStation 2 console having a marked effect on hardware sales. More than 91,000 units of the new model console have been sold in Japan between November 1st and 7th, over five times the number sold last week (although at that time PlayStation 2 sales were extremely depressed, as consumers waited for the new model to be released). This has left Sony with 74.94 percent share of the hardware market this week, easily eclipsing the previously dominant Game Boy Advance at its 18.66 percent share. After experiencing its best week of sales all year last week, the GameCube had its worst this week at just 3.04 percent - which has lead the Xbox to outsell it for the first time ever, at 3.24 percent. The Xbox sales spike was due to the release of Dead or Alive Ultimate, which follows fellow Tecmo titles Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball and Ninja Gaiden as the only Xbox titles ever to make it into the top ten. Certainly the release of Halo 2 is unlikely to maintain the console’s upturn in fortunes, with reports that copies of the game are being handed out for free on the streets of Tokyo. Somewhat surprisingly, the number one software title of the week is not for the PlayStation 2, but instead the Japanese release of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap for Game Boy Advance – illustrating just how important the big Nintendo brands still are in Japan. Overall, though, software sales were down almost 10 percent on last week, and just 71 percent of the weekly average. The Minish Cap sold approximately 97,000 units, but none of the other new titles came close to the 186,000 unit sales of last week’s Mario Power Tennis premiere.

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