Weekly Famitsu Releases Japanese Sales Summary

Sales data for the first half of 2005 in the Japanese games industry has come out, courtesy of game magazine Weekly Famitsu; its report ranks the top hardware platforms and software publishers, as well as the top 100 best-selling games in the first two quarters of the year. The PlayStation 2 is the winner, hardware-wise, in terms of units sold and number of games on the top 100 chart. To date in 2005, the PS2 has moved 1,286,882 systems, just a hair over the Nintendo DS with 1,236,268 systems. (The PSP is a close third, with 1,137,597 units sold.) The PS2 had 49 titles in the top 100, giving Sony's platform almost half of the entire list. Sony also had the #1 game so far in 2005: Gran Turismo 4 is the only million-seller of the year so far, with second-place performer Shin Sangoku Musou 4 (Dynasty Warriors 5) achieving a hair over 900,000 copies sold. The third PS2 Dragonball Z game reached 639,950 copies before total units falls below half a million with the fourth-place Nintendogs' tally of 494,330. Nintendogs led the list of original games or franchises introduced in 2005 that made the top 100, which comprised a short list. Radiata Stories from Square Enix came in 11th, Another Century's Episode from Banpresto was 14th, Brain Training for Adults DS was 23rd, and Rumble Rose from Konami was 46th.