The Japanese market has had a rather busy week of new releases. Although sales were well down on last week, they are still 105% of the weekly average, with over a million units sold in total.
The highest new entry, straight in at the top spot, was the PlayStation 2 version of
Tales of Symphonia, with a very respectable 265,000 copies sold. The original GameCube version sold 332,000 in its first week on sale last year - but does the discrepancy in these figures arguably prove once again that gamers, in any country, do not like to wait for ports of titles from other formats?
Samurai action game
Kengo 3 sold around 73,000 units as the second highest new entry, with Square Enix’s latest
Fullmetal Alchemist title scoring around 66,000, and Sega’s latest major-franchise
Sakura Wars game selling around 57,000. Sega has taken the increasingly common step of releasing both the Japanese and Chinese-language Asian versions of the latter simultaneously.
The preponderance of PlayStation 2 titles in the top ten has had surprisingly little effect on hardware sales, with the Game Boy Advance still dominating with a 62.24% market share, followed by the PlayStation 2 at 30.47%, the GameCube at 6.87% and the Xbox at an unfortunate 0.32%.
| TW | LW | Title | Publisher | Format | Release Date |
| 1 | NE | Tales of Symphonia | Namco | PS2 | 2004.09.22 |
| 2 | 2 | Pokémon Emerald | The Pokémon Company | GBA | 2004.09.16 |
| 3 | NE | Kengo 3 | Genki | PS2 | 2004.09.22 |
| 4 | NE | Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Akaki Elixir no Akuma | Square Enix | PS2 | 2004.09.22 |
| 5 | NE | Sakura Taisen V: Episode 0 - Arano no Samurai Musume | Sega | PS2 | 2004.09.22 |
| 6 | 2 | Sengoku Musou: Moushouden | Koei | PS2 | 2004.09.16 |
| 7 | NE | F1 2004 | SCE | PS2 | 2004.09.22 |
| 8 | 6 | Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros. 2 | Nintendo | GBA | 2004.08.10 |
| 9 | 4 | Biohazard: Outbreak - File #2 | Capcom | PS2 | 2004.09.09 |
| 10 | 10 | Jissen Pachi-Slot Hisshouhou: Fist of the North Star | Sammy | PS2 | 2004.05.27 |
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