With the major gift-giving season about to begin in Japan, sales have reached a peak, with sales of the top 100 software titles totaling 2,801,486 units this week. Interestingly, the sales have been led by some slightly older titles, particularly those from Nintendo.
The Kyoto-based giant has seen all of its primary franchises do well, with five titles in the top ten and only three games in the top ten not on a Nintendo format.
The top selling title of the week, though, was
Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Special – a
Mario Party style game including characters from both the
Dragon Quest and
Final Fantasy series - which sold 201,005 units (more than the approximately 161,000 units of its predecessor in its first week).
For the first time in a long while, no game in the top ten sold less than 100,000 units, with
Super Mario 64 DS shifting 150,550 units,
Mario Party 6 138,124 and
Yoshi Universal Gravitation 112,663.
Nintendo’s success is also reflected in hardware sales, with the GameCube actually managing to outsell the still difficult-to-source PSP. The best selling console of the week was again the Nintendo DS with 396,674 units sold for a market share of 39.85 percent. The Game Boy Advance followed with a 19.51 percent share, then the PlayStation 2 at 18.90 percent, the GameCube at 10.88 percent, the PSP at 10.77 percent and the Xbox at 0.07 percent.
If all three Nintendo formats are combined, that means the company had a colossal 70.24 percent of the hardware market during Japan’s busiest retail week. All the more impressive because this week saw record-breaking sales of approximately 1 million consoles. Once again, though, no permanent conclusions can be drawn from this until the PSP recovers from its initial stock shortages.
| TW | LW | Title | Publisher | Format | Release Date |
| 1 | NE | Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Special | Square Enix | PS2 | 2004.12.22 |
| 2 | 8 | Super Mario 64 DS | Nintendo | DS | 2004.12.02 |
| 3 | 7 | Mario Party 6 | Nintendo | GC | 2004.11.18 |
| 4 | 10 | Yoshi no Banyuu Inryoku | Nintendo | GBA | 2004.12.09 |
| 5 | 1 | Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater | Konami | PS2 | 2004.12.16 |
| 6 | RE | Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat | Nintendo | GC | 2004.12.16 |
| 7 | 5 | Sawaru Made in Wario | Nintendo | DS | 2004.12.02 |
| 8 | RE | Rockman EXE 5: Team of Blues | Capcom | GBA | 2004.12.09 |
| 9 | 3 | Dragon Quest VIII | Square Enix | PS2 | 2004.11.27 |
| 10 | NE | Konjiki no Gashbell!! Unare Yuujou no Dengeki 2 | Banpresto | GBA | 2004.12.22 |
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