Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending April 23

The Japanese market has rallied considerably in anticipation of the Golden Week holidays, with a number of high-performing new entries. In particular, long-awaited RPG sequel Mother 3 has gone straight into the number one spot, with 205,914 units sold. Originally planned as a 3D title for the Nintendo 64 the move to the Game Boy Advance does not appear to have dampened enthusiasm for the sequel to what in North America was known as EarthBound. The second highest new entry is a Dragon Quest VIII spin-off starring popular character Yangus, although the game’s 127,502 debut is as nothing compared to the more than 2 million units sold by the original Dragon Quest VIII game on its first weekend. At number three in the charts, the latest expansion pack for massively multiplayer online role-playing game Final Fantasy XI has performed well with 75,983 units sold, not including a new bundle featuring the core game and the other existing expansions. Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai has also performed well compared to most other recent PSP releases, with 70,559 units sold, while Capcom’s much acclaimed new adventure Okami has had a reasonable debut, with just 60,161 units sold. In terms of hardware, sales of the original version of the Nintendo DS have plummeted to just 8,051 units, meaning that although 168,809 DS Lite were sold, the total for the format is still slightly lower than the previous week, at 176,860. At the same time, the PSP regained its second place spot with 32,323 units sold, with the PlayStation 2 falling to fourth place with 25,763 units. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold almost three times more than normal at 29,492, due to the release of Mother 3, with 18,390 Game Boy Micros and 11,044 Game Boy Advance SPs. With Ninety-Nine Nights denied a top ten entry at number eleven, the Xbox 360 saw sales barely double at 3,990 units sold, compared to 1,106 for the GameCube. This leaves the format without any obvious rallying point in terms of near future releases, with only the Mistwalker titles now appearing to offer any major boost for the format in Japan.

Media Create Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The Copying or Reproduction of this Document is Strictly Forbidden