Japanese Game Sales for this Week

This is sales list for just last week in Japan. The numbers are from Media Create:

Hardware - This Week | Last Week | Total 2006 Sales

1.) Nintendo DS Lite - 196,719 | 163,572 | 3,730,118
2.) PlayStation Portable - 41,289 | 49,352 | 1,157,364
3.) PlayStation 2 - 26,547 | 25,987 | 908,778
4.) Game Boy Advance SP - 3,051 | 2,784 | 182,649
5.) Game Boy micro - 2,031 | 1,928 | 113,475
6.) Xbox360 - 1,204 | 1,389 | 65,987
7.) GameCube - 940 | 904 | 61,357
8.) Nintendo DS - 934 | 1,159 | 951,837
9.) Game Boy Advance - 23 | 34 | 2,979
10.) Xbox - 6 | 14 | 1,630

1. NDS New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo) - 117,706 / 2,731,934
2. NDS Tamagotchi Shop 2 (Bandai) - 66,564 / 334,875
3. PS2 Melty Blood: Act Cadenza (Ecole) - 64,980 / *NEW*
4. NDS More Brain Training (Nintendo) - 59,585 / 2,985,432
5. NDS Cooking Navi (Nintendo) - 57,257 / 290,960
6. NDS Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo) - 44,201 / 3,077,295
7. NDS Brain Training (Nintendo) - 38,954 / 2,688,146
8. PSP SD Gundam Generation G Portable (Bandai) - 36,592 / 192,227
9. PS2 Fist of the North Star Pachislot (Sega) - 33,951 / 116,507
10. NDS Kirarin * Revolution: Kira Kira Idol Audition (Konami) - 33,332 / *NEW*
11. NDS Mario Basket 3-on-3 (Nintendo)
12. NDS English Training (Nintendo)
13. PS2 Sengoku Basara 2 (Capcom)
14. GBA Rhythm Tengoku (Nintendo)
15. PS2 Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 13 (Konami)
16. NDS Mario Kart DS (Nintendo)
17. NDS Star Fox Command (Nintendo)
18. NDS Tetris DS (Nintendo)
19. NDS Fist of the North Star Pachislot SE (Sega)
20. NDS Atsumare! Power Pro Kun no DS Koushien (Konami)
21. PSP Fist of the North Star Pachislot SE (Sega)
22. NDS Digimon Story (Bandai)
23. PS2 Battle Stadium D.O.N (Bandai)
24. PS2 Kamaitachi no Yoru x 3 (Sega)
25. NDS Pokemon Ranger (Nintendo)
26. PSP Monster Hunter Portable -Greatest Hits- (Capcom)
27. NDS Mushiking Greatest Champion e-no Michi 2 (Sega)
28. NDS Big Brain Academy / Yawaraka Atama Juku (Nintendo)
29. PS2 True Crime Urban Chaos (Activision)
30. NDS Puzzle Series Vol.3 SUDOKU (Hudson)


The Video Game Industry is turning inside out at the moment. In Japan, it has gotten so bad that the DS sells out every week. Those 200k of DS Lites you see above all sold out on a single day (Saturday). The rate of DS sales are so strong that it will surpass PS2's total sales very soon. The numbers it took the PS2 more than seven years to reach in Japan will be surpassed within three years of the DS. I hear the DS is also taking off in Europe (I'll try to get numbers on those sales). DS's weakest market is America.

The handheld wars are over. The PSP is stalling and the gap between it and the DS is growing. Change is everywhere in this industry (as should be obvious with E3 being shut down).

Following the game business is more entertaining to me than playing the games! It is interesting to watch an industry turn inside out.