Dragon Quest Tops Japanese New Year Chart

Delayed by several days because of the Japanese New Year holidays – a more significant gift giving occasion in the country than Christmas – the latest charts for the week ending December 31st show a highly impressive debut for Square Enix’s latest Nintendo DS title. Created as a reaction to the Pokemon phenomenon, the Dragon Quest Monsters spin-off series has not seen a new entry since the Japanese-only Game Boy Advance title Caravan Heart in 2003. The new DS game, noted for its impressive 3D graphics, performed extremely well in its first week with over half a million copies sold – 90,000 more than for the debut of Final Fantasy III. There were no other new entries in the top ten, but substantial movement nonetheless, with Wii Sports and Wii Play both beginning to show considerable longevity despite continued low stock of hardware. The other re-entries in the chart are all major family friendly titles, suitable for the gift-giving season, including Common Sense Training at number four, the second Brain Training title at number six and the ever popular Animal Crossing: Wild World at number nine. The highest ranked PlayStation 3 title of the week was Sony’s own Formula One Championship Edition at number thirty-four, while there were no Xbox 360 titles in the top fifty. Hardware sales were significantly down from the previous week (traditionally the busiest of the year in Japan), with the Nintendo DS selling only 176,321 units. The Wii was in second place with 96,332 units sold, followed by the PlayStation 3 at 71,727 units, the PSP at 68,675 units and the PlayStation 2 at 38,169 units. The Xbox 360 showed the least fall off from the previous week at 16,909 units sold, followed by the Game Boy Advance family of consoles at 3,876 units and the GameCube at 847.

Media Create Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The Copying or Reproduction of this Document is Strictly Forbidden