Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending January 8

Sales have finally begun to ebb lower in Japan, following the end of the main winter gift buying season. Overall, sales were down 23 percent on last week, but the top 100 titles still totaled over 2 million unit sales, well above the figure of 1.36 million at the same time last year. In terms of specific titles, Nintendo tightened its grip even more firmly on the top ten, publishing eight of the top ten titles – with only one game for a non-Nintendo manufactured console in the whole list. The third of Nintendo’s Brain Training games remained in the number one spot, with 290,021 unit sales. Second placed Animal Crossing sold 132,991 units, passing the 1.5 million lifetime milestone, while Mario Kart DS sold 114,709 units and should pass the one million mark next week. Gentle Brain Exercises and Kingdom Hearts II are also certain to hit the same milestone next week, with Bandai’s DS Tamagotchi game also likely to exceed one million with the next month. In terms of hardware, the Nintendo DS has seen its 37 week stretch as Japan’s best selling console come to a sudden end, as its stock shortage begin to bite. It was left to the PSP then to lead the market, with a 37.30 percent market share and 132,757 units sold. The Nintendo DS was next with 91,379 sales and a 25.68 percent market share, followed by the PlayStation 2 with 80,886 sales and a 22.73 percent share of the market. The Game Boy Advance family was next with a 8.38 percent share, followed by the GameCube at 3.77 percent. The Xbox 360 continued to disappoint, with just a 2.10 percent market share and only 7,477 units sold, the original Xbox becoming a now total irrelevance in Japan, with just 15 consoles sold this week.

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