Saling The World: Calm Before the Storm

Gamasutra's weekly column, "Saling The World", covers the top five sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide. This week's charts, with data taken from November 30th, 2006, include several unsuspecting titles that may soon find themselves displaced following next week's torrent of new releases. Data for "Saling The World" comes courtesy of the public sales information on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.co.jp, with sales split out for each platform and territory, and pre-orders disregarded. This results in a true sense of what games are selling worldwide on the real-time updated service, as follows: Nintendo Wii North America: 1. Rayman: Raving Rabbids (Ubisoft), 2. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (Sega), 3. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 4. Red Steel (Ubisoft), 5. Excite Truck (Nintendo). Though The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess continues to be unavailable at Amazon and many other retailers, Zelda-less Wii owners can take solace in the fact that secondary market prices have now dropped below sixty dollars on average. Whether retailers will be able to restock in time for Christmas is unknown at this time. Japan, meanwhile, is currently preparing itself for the Wii launch, with Hajimete no Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Wii Sports currently leading in software preorders. Wii sales data for the region should be available starting next week. Xbox 360 North America: 1. Gears of War (Microsoft), 2. Call of Duty 3 (Activision), 3. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 4. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (Ubisoft), 5. Tony Hawk's Project 8 (Activision). Japan: 1. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 (Tecmo), 2. Super Robot Taisen XO (Banpresto), 3. Culdcept Saga (Bandai), 4. Rumble Roses XX (Konami), 5. Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis (Rockstar). UK: 1. Gears of War (Microsoft), 2. Call of Duty 3 (Activision), 3. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (Ubisoft), 4. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 5. Need for Speed Carbon (EA Games). Super Robot Taisen XO debuts high on the Japanese Xbox 360 software sales chart this week, joining other popular recent releases like Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 and Culdcept Saga. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 in particular has proven to be so popular that it ranked in among the top ten best sellers in Japanese software across all platforms for the week of November 20th through 26th -- quite a feat, considering the relatively small Xbox 360 user base in Japan. PlayStation 3 North America: 1. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 2. Ridge Racer 7 (Namco Bandai Games), 3. Resistance: Fall of Man (SCEA), 4. Call of Duty 3 (Activision), 5. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Activision). Japan: 1. Ridge Racer 7 (Namco), 2. Resistance: Jinrui Botsuraku no Hi (SCEI), 3. Kidou Senshi Gundam: Target in Sight (Bandai), 4. Genji: Kamui Souran (SCEI), 5. Miyazato San Kyoudai Naizou: Sega Golf Club (Sega). PlayStation 3 sales data in the United States and Japan remains much the same as last week's results, though both charts could soon be shaken up by upcoming key releases. Fight Night Round 3 and Full Auto 2: Battlelines are set to debut in the United States next week, and Armored Core 4 will follow suit in Japan the week thereafter. All three titles could end up becoming big sellers in December, and may even continue to have chart presence into 2007. PlayStation 2 North America: 1. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 2. Final Fantasy XII (Square Enix), 3. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 4. Guitar Hero II (RedOctane), 5. Guitar Hero (RedOctane). Japan: 1. Kamen Rider Kabuto (Bandai), 2. Ryuu ga Gotoku (Sega), 3. Tales of Destiny (Namco), 4. J-League Winning Eleven 10 + Europa League 06-07 (Konami), 5. Sengoku Musou 2: Empires (Koei). UK: 1. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 2. WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2007 (THQ), 3. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 4. Need for Speed Carbon (EA Games), 5. Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (Konami). The original Guitar Hero climbs back into the top five this week in the United States, possibly due to a recent increase in demand for extra guitar controllers. Japan, on the other hand, sees some of its biggest sales in new releases like Kamen Rider Kabuto and Tales of Destiny. PC North America: 1. Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Microsoft), 2. The Sims 2 (EA Games), 3. Crazy Machines: The Wacky Contraptions Game (Viva Media), 4. Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave (Atari), 5. World of Warcraft (Blizzard). Japan: 1. Ragnarok Online Anniversary Package (Gungho Online Entertainment), 2. Ys Origin (Nihon Falcom), 3. Final Fantasy XI All-in-One Pack 2006 (Square Enix), 4. Sukatto Golf Pangya (Frontier Groove), 5. Phantasy Star Universe (Sega). UK: 1. The Sims 2: Pets (EA Games), 2. Medieval II: Total War (Sega), 3. The Sims 2 (EA Games), 4. Football Manager 2007 (Sega), 5. Company of Heroes (THQ). Few changes can be found in this week's PC charts, but the World of Warcraft expansion Burning Crusade continues to lead preorder numbers in both the United States and the UK. Given that World of Warcraft continues to appear on both regions' charts regularly, Burning Crusade can be expected to pull in big sales numbers for weeks following its planned release in January. Nintendo DS North America: 1. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo), 2. Brain Age (Nintendo), 3. Yoshi's Island DS (Nintendo), 4. Pokemon Ranger (Nintendo), 5. Nintendogs: Dalmatian & Friends (Nintendo). Japan: 1. Pocket Monsters Diamond (Nintendo), 2. Nippon Joushikiryoku Kenteikau Kanshuu: Imasara Jin ni wa Kikienai - Otona no Joushikiryoku Training DS (Nintendo), 3. Pocket Monsters Pearl (Nintendo), 4. Hoshi no Kirby: Sanjou! Dorocche Dan (Nintendo), 5. Oshare Majo Love and Berry (DS Collection) (Sega). UK: 1. Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo), 2. Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo), 3. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo), 4. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team (Nintendo), 5. Mario Kart DS (Nintendo). The United States' DS chart will be shaken up by two major releases next week. Both Kirby: Squeak Squad and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin are highly anticipated titles that many DS owners have been looking forward to for months, and both games could provide ample competition for perennial chart-toppers like New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age. PlayStation Portable North America: 1. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 2. Daxter (SCEA), 3. Star Wars Battlefront II (LucasArts), 4. Medal of Honor: Heroes (EA Games), 5. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Rockstar). Japan: 1. Makai Senki Disgaea Portable (Nippon Ichi), 2. Ridge Racers 2 (Namco), 3. Riviera: Yakusoku no Chi (Sting), 4. SD Gundam G Generation Portable (Bandai), 5. Planetarium Curator Ohira Takayuki Kanshuu: Home Star Portable (Sega). UK: 1. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (Rockstar), 2. Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (Konami), 3. Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City (EA Games), 4. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 5. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts). Makai Senki Disgaea Portable -- a remake of the popular PlayStation 2 strategy RPG released in the United States as Disgaea: Hour of Darkness -- surges to the top spot in PSP software sales in its first week of release, beating out previous chart topper Riviera: Yakusoku no Chi, which falls to third place. Elsewhere, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories continues to see its strongest sales in Europe, while Madden NFL 07 once again outsells all competition in the United States. Game Boy Advance North America: 1. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team (Nintendo), 2. Cars (THQ), 3. Pokemon Emerald Version (Nintendo), 4. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo), 5. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Buena Vista). Japan: 1. Final Fantasy VI Advance (Square Enix), 2. Final Fantasy V Advance (Square Enix), 3. Pocket Monsters Emerald (Nintendo), 4. Pocket Monsters FireRed (Nintendo), 5. Rhythm Tengoku (Nintendo). UK: 1. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team (Nintendo), 2. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 3. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 4. Pac-Man Collection (Atari), 5. Dogz (Ubisoft). As what looks to be the last major title scheduled to see release for the Game Boy Advance in Japan, Final Fantasy VI Advance easily took first place in GBA sales following its release earlier this week. The game will not see release in the United States until February of 2007. No European release date has yet been announced. Xbox North America: 1. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 2. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 3. Halo 2 (Microsoft), 4. Eragon (Vivendi), 5. Tony Hawk's Project 8 (Activision). Japan: 1. Halo 2 (Microsoft), 2. Halo (Microsoft), 3. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Tecmo), 4. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (Microsoft), 5. Beat Down (Capcom). UK: 1. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 2. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 3. Need for Speed Carbon (EA Games), 4. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Ubisoft), 5. The Simpsons: Hit and Run (Vivendi). New releases like Eragon and Tony Hawk's Project 8 continue to place high in North American Xbox software sales, but Xbox owners in all regions appear to be shifting their attention toward classic titles. This is particularly evident in Japan, where older games like Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Beat Down have once again found their way into top sales positions more than a year after their release.