Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending July 17thJapanese Sales Charts, Week Ending July 17th

The success of Konami’s highly popular baseball series Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu has continued the upturn in the Japanese software market’s fortune, with overall sales up by 20 percent in this week's Japanese charts, up on last week’s already solid figures. The twelfth entry in the series, which began on the SNES, sold 277,907 units on the PlayStation 2, much more than the approximately 205,000 units of its immediate predecessor. The GameCube version of the game also did reasonably, especially since sports title do not traditionally sell well on the format, with 34,465 sales. The second-ranked title was the third in the Saru Get You/Ape Escape series, with better than expected sales of 94,627 units. The latest in the Jissen Pachi-Slot Hisshouhou! gambling series from Sega Sammy Holdings also sold above the franchise’s normal levels, with the only disappoint of the week being the slightly underwhelming performance, compared to previous games using the license, of Naruto RPG 2, with 36,841 units sold. In hardware sales, the Nintendo DS once again easily dominated, with a 36.14 market share and 35,827 units sold. The PlayStation 2 was next with a 30.10 percent share and 29,841 sales, followed by the PSP at 21.21 percent and 21,025 sales. The Game Boy Advance showed up next, with a 9.53 percent market share, followed by the GameCube at 2.80 percent and the Xbox at 0.22 percent.

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