GTA: San Andreas Tops Japanese Sales Charts

In another busy week of sales and new releases, there have been more surprises in the Japanese sales chart, with Rockstar’s Capcom-distributed Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for PlayStation 2 taking the top spot with over 225,000 units sold. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City also debuted at the number one spot in the Japanese charts in 2004, with Grand Theft Auto III debuting at number two in 2003. The release of the final PlayStation 2 entry in the series has been delayed following numerous complaints and sales restrictions in Japan, as a result of media controversy similar to that seen in the West. As a result San Andreas has seen several edits, including the inability to injure downed civilians, and has been given the highly restrictive Z age rating. Despite this, sales have been extremely strong, and well above average for a Japanese developed title at number one. Also of note is the reappearance of Square Enix’s Dragon Quest Monsters – Joker for Nintendo DS at number two, with over 100,000 unit sales. The title was almost completely sold out last week, with the arrival of new stock boosting the game to over 1 million sales so far in Japan. Sega’s new Sangokushi Taisen DS (not to be confused with Koei’s similarly named titles, also based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms novels) has also debuted strongly with more than 77,000 unit sales. There was also success for Nintendo’s first new Picross game in several years, and its first for DS, with almost 72,000 units sold. In addition, what is known in the West as Hotel Dusk: Room 215 for DS performed strongly at number five, with almost 60,000 unit sales. Although last week’s Gears Of War has completely dropped out of the top fifty this week, the Xbox 360 has enjoyed another minor hit with Namco Bandai’s The Idol M@ster at number fifteen. The only PlayStation 3 title in the top fifty is From Software’s Enchanted Arms at number twenty-nine. In hardware sales, increased stock for the Nintendo DS saw its total for the week rise to 194,608 units. Wii sales were similar to the previous week at 83,754 units sold, well ahead of the PSP in third place with 35,700 units sold. The PlayStation 2 sold 20,995 consoles during the week, pushing the PlayStation 3 into a humiliating fifth place with just 19,996 units sold – again without any significant reports of stock shortages. Xbox 360 sales were static at 7,365 units, with the Game Boy Advance family of consoles selling 2,234 units and the GameCube 347.

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