Enterbrain: Game Market Down 25 Percent In Japan's First Half

The game market fell 24.4 percent year-over-year during the first half of the year in Japan, as both sales of consoles and handheld software languished. Video game weblog Andriasang.com translated a report from Japan's ITmedia noting that the domestic video game market generated ¥218.9 billion ($2.31 billion) in revenues from December 29, 2008 to June 28, 2009. According to the Enterbrain-originating figures, video game hardware dropped 27.6 percent during the period, while software was down 21.8 percent, a notable downshift for the market. The Japanese market saw four million-sellers during the comparable period, including Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii and Capcom's Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G for PSP. In fact, the latter title continues to make weekly top 10 sales charts thanks to a budget greatest hits release. But there have been no million-sellers yet this year. The top selling game of this year so far was Nintendo's Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!! for DS, selling 650,000 units. Following that game in order of sales were Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, Sega's Yakuza 3 for PS3, Capcom's Resident Evil 5 for PS3, and Nintendo's Wii Fit. On the hardware front, handhelds ruled, as the DS line topped all other platforms, selling 1.62 million, while the PSP followed -- with 1.18 million units sold during the period. Wii was the best selling home console for the period with 640,000 units sold, Sony's PlayStation 3 sold 550,000 units, and Xbox 360 sold 210,000.