Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending September 4th

After weeks of steady sales, the Japanese market has slowed somewhat, with only one notable new release and sales 64 percent of the weekly average. However, this is no cause for concern, as it comes at the end of the summer vacation period which traditionally always sees a lull in sales. In fact, sales of the top 100 titles are actually up, from the 429,461 recorded at the same time last year to 493,733 this year. The lack of other new releases has been taken full advantage of by PSP anime fighting game Bleach: Heat the Soul 2, which has recorded the highest PSP ranking for several months in Japan, albeit with only 26,446 sales. However, this failed to top the highest ranked title, Namco’s PlayStation 2 role-playing epic Tales of Legendia, which recorded a so-so 51,676 unit sales in its first week on sale. Despite the drop in software sales, hardware has been largely unaffected, with Nintendo DS sales up to 58,579 units and a 48.14 percent market share. The PlayStation 2 managed a 21.60 percent market share and 26,282 units sold, followed by the PSP at 18.58 percent and 22,610 sales. Next was the Game Boy Advance at 9.55 percent, then the GameCube at 1.96 percent, and the Xbox at 0.16 percent.

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