Kirby Continues Nintendo Domination In Japanese Charts

Nintendo has fallen just short of enjoying a second week where the entire Japanese top ten is composed solely of Nintendo DS titles. In the end Ace Combat X at number ten was the only non-Nintendo DS game in the charts, with a paltry 17,961 unit sales. Debuting at number one is what will be known in the West as Kirby Squeak Squad, which has already fared much better than the less traditional Kirby: Canvas Curse – which, despite success in North America, performed disappointingly in Japan. Konami’s first Pro Evolution Soccer game on the DS has also sold well at number four, on a system which is not normally noted for its realistic sports titles. There were no other new entries in the top ten though, with a clear distinction in sales between the newer releases in the top five and returning older titles such as Brain Training 2 (aka Brain Age 2) and Animal Crossing: Wild World. Hardware sales remained soft for the week, as they have been for much of the last month, with the Nintendo DS selling just 113,470 units – although at the same time passing a lifetime-to-date total in Japan of over 12 million units. The PSP sold 23,725 units and the PlayStation 2 20,982. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold 2,762 units and the GameCube 647. The most significant result in terms of hardware sales for the week was the Xbox 360, with sales increasing almost six-fold to 6,580, as a result of the launch of the Core version of the console, without a hard drive. This configuration was not originally released in Japan, but, together with interest in pre-orders for Mistwalker’s Blue Dragon, appears to have rejuvenated interest in the console in Japan, at least in the short term.

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