FFIV Makes Strong Debut; DS, Mario Party Lead Japanese Charts

In the latest hardware numbers from sales tracker Media Create, Japan's pre-holiday sales have shown continued strength, with Nintendo continuing its dominance. Sales of the DS have again by some 50,000 units, for a weekly total of 279,551, while the Wii rose by some 60,000 units to 232,907 placing it firmly back in its number two slot. Following last week's jump to number two after the release of a special edition model, Sony's PSP falls back to number 3 with 171,804 units sold, while PS3 sales fell by a few thousand to 58,167. The PS2 saw a slight jump in sales to 20,391, as the Xbox 360 fell by a few hundred units to 7,908. Turning to software, following last week's rebound in the run-up to the holidays, the latest numbers show a continued dramatic upward trend in the final week before Christmas, with Nintendo again making a strong showing. As before, Mario Party for the DS stays on top of the charts, nearly doubling its sales from the week before with 330,000 units sold, followed by the debut of Square Enix's DS remake of Final Fantasy IV at number two, with 288,000 units. Namco Bandai also have reason to celebrate with two new anime-licensed entries in the top ten as PS2 fighting game Naruto: Shippuuden N-Ultimate Accelerator 2 debuts at number five, and DS sports game Doraemon Baseball: Dramatic Stadium makes its first showing at number eight. Elsewhere in the charts, after making its first entry at number three last week, Sony’s PS3 racer Gran Turismo 5 Prologue quickly fell to number 28, while its first-party PSP rhythm-battle title Patapon debuted at number 46.

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