Japanese Game Market Flat In 09 On Strong Software

Although the Japanese game market continued its annual shrinking trend in fiscal 2009, the contraction was far smaller than last year's 17.4 percent drop -- this year, Japanese retail fell only 0.6 percent thanks to a software surge, effectively flat. New figures from Famitsu publisher Enterbrain translated by website Andriasang show a total ¥332,880 million in software sales between March 30, 2009 and March 28, 2010, up 3.7 percent year over year. Square Enix's explosively-popular DS title Dragon Quest IX led the charts with 4,150,667 units sold, and Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver came in second with 3,663,655 million units. New Super Mario Bros Wii is in third for the fiscal year after just four months on shelves with 3,587,755 units; DS title Friend Collection has 3,085,838 units, and Final Fantasy XIII was the year's fifth-best seller with 1,881,972 sold. Hardware sales, however, saw a steeper decline. Total hardware sales of ¥216,180 million yen represent a 6.6 percent year over year decline. The year's hardware sales charts, with life-to-date totals in parentheses, are as follows: 1. DS: 3,922,762 (30,075,728) 2. PSP: 2,422,765 (14,227,354) 3. Wii: 2,183,938 (10,137,092) 4. PlayStation 3: 1,925,429 (4,934,824) 5. Xbox 360: 251,911 (1,253,102)