Saling The World: Tennis Fantasy 40,000 Advance

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 October 12th, 2006, includes portable Fantasies and approximately 40,000 Warhammers. 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: Xbox 360 North America: 1. Dead Rising (Capcom), 2. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (EA Sports), 3. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 4. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 5. NBA 2K7 (2K Sports). Japan: 1. Table Tennis (Rockstar), 2. Tomb Raider Legend (Spike), 3. Tenchu Senran (From Software), 4. Project Sylpheed (Square Enix), 5. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Ubisoft). UK: 1. Top Spin 2 (2K Sports), 2. Just Cause (Eidos), 3. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 4. Dead Rising (Capcom), 5. Saints Row (THQ). Though North America's Xbox 360 chart holds few surprises this week, Japan's and Europe's lists are headed by two unexpected hits. Rockstar's Table Tennis appears to have gained a small following in Japan after its recent release, likely thanks in part to favorable review scores given by the Japanese press. Europe, on the other hand, sees its #1 best seller in Top Spin 2, which leads sales again for the first time since its release more than six months ago, thanks to a recent price drop. PlayStation 2 North America: 1. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 2. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (EA Sports), 3. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 4. Okami (Capcom), 5. Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Midway). Japan: 1. Dragon Ball Z Sparking! NEO (Bandai), 2. God of War (Capcom), 3. Xenosaga Episode III Premium DVD (Namco), 4. Driver: Parallel Lines (AQ Interactive), 5. Kuryuu Youma Gakuenki re:charge (Atlus). UK: 1. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 2. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 3. Scarface: The World is Yours (Vivendi), 4. Kingdom Hearts 2 (Square Enix), 5. Cars (THQ). New releases like Mortal Kombat Armageddon and Scarface: The World is Yours slowly creep up this week's lists of best sellers, but none are able to wrest the top positions from established sellers like LEGO Star Wars II and EA's sports titles. Given the hype surrounding many of the PS2's recent releases in the United States and Europe, however, this could very well change in the near future. PC North America: 1. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade (THQ), 2. Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave (Atari), 3. World of Warcraft (Blizzard), 4. The Sims 2 (EA Games), 5. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (EA Sports). Japan: 1. Phantasy Star Universe (Sega), 2. The Sims 2 Plus (EA Games), 3. Arabians Lost: The Engagement on Desert (QuinRose), 4. Sim People: Expansion Collection 3 (EA Games), 5. The Sims 2 Gorgeous Pack (EA Games). UK: 1. Company of Heroes (THQ), 2. World of Warcraft (Blizzard), 3. The Sims 2: Glamour Life Stuff (EA Games), 4. The Sims 2 (EA Games), 5. Barrow Hill (Lighthouse). World of Warcraft's dominance is shaken this week in the United States by the recently released Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade expansion pack and Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave, the latest entry in Atari's popular Nancy Drew series of adventure games. Elsewhere, all things The Sims continue to perform well, especially in Japan, where three of the week's top five PC titles belong to various entries and expansions in the series. Nintendo DS North America: 1. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team (Nintendo), 2. Brain Age (Nintendo), 3. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo), 4. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (Nintendo), 5. Big Brain Academy (Nintendo). Japan: 1. Oide yo Doubutsu no Mori (Nintendo), 2. Zaidanhoujin Nippon Kanji Nouryoku Kentei Kounin: KanKen DS (Rocket Company), 3. Touhoku Daigaku Mirai Kagaku Gijutsu Kyoudou Kenkyuu Center Kawashima Ryuuta Kyouju Kanshuu: Motto Nou wo Kitaeru Otona no DS Training (Nintendo), 4. Pocket Monsters Pearl (Nintendo), 5. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo). UK: 1. Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo), 2. New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo), 3. 42 All-Time Classics (Nintendo), 4. Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo), 5. Big Brain Academy (Nintendo). Pocket Monsters Pearl and Diamond suffer a sudden dip in sales this week in Japan, following two solid weeks where both titles remained atop overall sales across all consoles and portables. Whether this is due to consumer disinterest or to a lack of copies that are able to be sold is unknown, but odds are that Japan's bestseller lists have not seen the last of either title. PlayStation Portable North America: 1. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 2. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (EA Sports), 3. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (Rockstar), 4. Star Wars Battlefront II (LucasArts), 5. Tekken: Dark Resurrection (Bandai Namco Games). Japan: 1. Gundam Battle Royale (Bandai), 2. Kiyuu Densetsu: Sora no Kiseki FC (Nihon Falcom), 3. Minna no Golf Portable (SCEJ), 4. SD Gundam G Generation Portable (Bandai), 5. Ridge Racers 2 (Namco). UK: 1. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 2. Cars (THQ), 3. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (EA Sports), 4. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror (SCEE), 5. Tekken: Dark Resurrection (SCEE). This week sees the return of the nearly year-old Star Wars Battlefront II to the PSP's bestseller list in the United States. Curiously, the title also finds itself back among the top-selling Xbox games this week in Europe. Battlefront II's price at many retailers does not appear to have changed recently, either, making this situation especially odd. Surely Star Wars fans have a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why this is happening, though this reasoning will likely be lost on most of us. Game Boy Advance North America: 1. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team (Nintendo), 2. Pokémon FireRed Version (Nintendo), 3. Pokémon Leaf Green Version (Nintendo), 4. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo), 5. Pokémon Emerald Version (Nintendo). Japan: 1. Final Fantasy V Advance (Square Enix), 2. Rhythm Tengoku (Nintendo), 3. Screw Breaker (Nintendo), 4. Final Fantasy IV Advance (Square Enix), 5. Pocket Monsters Emerald (Nintendo). UK: 1. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 2. Cars (THQ), 3. Pokémon Emerald Version, 4. Dogz (Ubisoft), 5. Crash Bandicoot XS (Vivendi). Though Rhythm Tengoku has perched atop the Game Boy Advance's weekly top sellers list in Japan since this column's inception, its reign has come to an end as of this week's release of Final Fantasy V Advance. This comes as little surprise, considering the success of last month's release of Final Fantasy III on the Nintendo DS. The GBA remake of Final Fantasy VI is also expected to sell a great number of copies upon its release in Japan at the end of November, ensuring Square Enix's control of the portable RPG market throughout the winter months. Xbox North America: 1. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 2. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports), 3. Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Midway), 4. Halo 2 (Microsoft), 5. Scarface: The World is Yours (Vivendi). Japan: 1. Halo (Microsoft), 2. Conker: Live & Reloaded (Microsoft), 3. Halo 2 (Microsoft), 4. Forza Motorsport (Microsoft), 5. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Tecmo). UK: 1. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 2. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 3. Scarface: The World is Yours (Vivendi), 4. Star Wars Battlefront II (Activision), 5. Just Cause (Eidos). As with the PS2, newcomers Mortal Kombat Armageddon and Scarface: The World is Yours sold well in their first week of release, but LEGO Star Wars II and Madden continue to lead overall sales for the Xbox in the United States. In Japan, meanwhile, two (or possibly even three) people apparently bought copies of Conker: Live & Reloaded within an hour of each other, boosting it up past Halo 2 and into the region's top five. GameCube North America: 1. LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (LucasArts), 2. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Nintendo), 3. Super Smash Bros. Melee (Nintendo), 4. LEGO Star Wars (Eidos), 5. Madden NFL 07 (EA Sports). Japan: 1. Pokémon XD: Yami no Kaze Dark Lugia (Nintendo), 2. Bokujou Monogatari: Shiawase no Uta for World (Marvelous), 3. Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes (Nintendo), 4. Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus (Sega), 5. Soul Calibur II (Namco). UK: 1. FIFA 07 (EA Sports), 2. Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness (Nintendo), 3. Mario Party 7 (Nintendo), 4. LEGO Star Wars (Eidos), 5. Chicken Little (Buena Vista). Nintendo fans clearly have their sights set on the Wii, as this week's best-selling GameCube games in all regions represent a mostly interchangeable mish-mash of popular titles from the console's past five years of releases. It's still too early to bid the GameCube a permanent farewell, but with the console experiencing weeks-long droughts of new releases, its list of top sellers does not seem likely to change from week to week in any meaningful way.