Second Flawless Victory For Nintendo In Japanese Charts

Nintendo has tightened its iron grip on the Japanese sales charts yet further with the entire top sixteen selling titles all being for Nintendo formats. The release of the chart data has been delayed due to the Golden Week series of public holidays, one of the most important sales periods in Japan, although only the first day is covered by this new chart. The top selling game of the week was Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings on Nintendo DS with an impressive 274,000 sales. Although a direct sequel to the PlayStation 2 game, the portable spin-off is closer to a real time strategy with Final Fantasy Tactics elements, in terms of gameplay. The second highest selling game of the week is new entry Momotarou Dentetsu DS at number two, with almost 79,000 unit sales. This is the first in the long running board game series to appear on the Nintendo DS and a popular family game in Japan. There are a total of five Wii games in the top ten, with the highest new entry being what will be known in the U.S. as Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree at number five, with 42,259 sales. The likely final success of the game, which was a million seller in Japan on the Nintendo DS but far less popular than the Brain Training (aka Brain Age) series, is unclear with a slow start having been already widely predicted. The only third-party Wii game in the top ten (there are no other Wii titles in the rest of the top thirty) is Bandai Namco’s anime license One Piece: Unlimited Adventure at number seven, with 40,003 unit sales. The final new entry of the week is puzzle game Panel de Pon DS (to be known as Planet Puzzle League in the U.S.) at number ten, with 34,583 unit sales. The highest ranked PSP title of the week is Final Fantasy: Anniversary Edition at number seventeen. There are no PlayStation 3 titles in the top thirty, although there are two Xbox 360 games: Test Drive Unlimited at number twenty-four and Rainbow Six: Vegas at number twenty-seven. (Hardware sales data for the previous week in Japan will likely be available from tomorrow morning.)

Media Create Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. [UPDATE - 05/08/07 - small discrepancy in Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 sales number corrected. Thanks to Gaming-Age Forums for translation help.]