Wii Has Lift-Off In Japanese Sales Charts

The launch of the Wii in Japan has had considerably more impact on the weekly sales charts than that of the PlayStation 3, with the far greater amount of stock resulting in four titles in the top ten. However, in the busiest week of sales so far in Japan this year it is Namco Bandai’s role-playing game remake Tales of Destiny, which has hit the number one spot with over 250,000 units sales. No less than six titles sold over 100,000 units this week, with the biggest selling Wii title being Wii Sports – which is not bundled with the console in Japan. The fact that Wii Play was the second best selling title, ahead of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess perhaps shows already that the Wii is appealing to a wider audience than the normal hardcore gamers whose tastes usually dominate a new hardware launch. A launch title only in Japan, what will be known in the West as Wario Ware: Smooth Moves was the fourth highest seller for the Wii at number nine in the charts. Tecmo’s Swing Golf Pangya (aka Super Swing Golf) was next at number twenty-one with 16,908 unit sales, followed by Namco Bandai’s Japanese only mini-game collection Ennichi no Tatsujin at number twenty-eight with 10,763 sales. Ubisoft’s Red Steel was at number thirty-two with 9,392 units sold, followed by Bandai Namco’s SD Gundam: Scad Hammers at thirty-three with 9,226 units, Bandai Namco’s Tamagotchi no Pika Pika Daitouryou! at thirty-seven with 8,042 units and Konami’s Elebits at number forty-seven with 5,791 units sold. Sega’s Super Monkey Ball, Banpresto’s Crayon Shin-Chan, Atlus’ Trauma Center, Hudson’s Kororinpa and Wing Island and Spike’s Necro-Nesia all failed to chart within the top fifty. In terms of hardware sales Media Create put the Wii’s total, for the two days covered by this week’s chart, at 350,358 units – slightly lower than Enterbrain’s figure of 372,000 units. This is the first time the Nintendo DS has been outsold all year, with its sales down by almost 25,000 units to 177,041. The PlayStation 3 sold an additional 31,436 units this week for a lifetime total of 187,836 in Japan – beating the Xbox 360’s total of 178,069 in just three weeks. The Xbox 360 may well retake its lead over the PlayStation 3 next week though, with reports of hundreds of customers queuing up to buy Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon - which was released on Thursday. This week though Xbox 360 hardware sales fell by 2,000 to 4,053. This put it well behind the PSP at 23,917 units sold and the PlayStation 2 at 23,115 units. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold 2,846 units and the GameCube 821.

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