by Blake Snow 
{ Mar 31st 2006 at 9:25AM }
Japanese digital entertainment anaylizers Media Create have
release hardware sales for the week of 3/20 to 3/26. Here's how it wen't down.
Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond (11/30/09)
PlayStation Home Winter Wonderland (PS3)
Transformers Avatar items
Uncharted 2: Battle of the Doughnuts
Shiren the Wanderer (Wii)
Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition
Star Wars: Trench Run (iPhone)
No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise (PS3/Xbox 360)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (WiiWare)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jeff @ Mar 31st 2006 9:33AM
Xbox 360 is gaining momentum!
Seriously, domination by Nintendo. And Golden Week's coming up...
Kevin @ Mar 31st 2006 9:42AM
DS Lite get?
Everytime I look at the japanese charts... I always scratch my head at just how bad Nintendo is dominating...
Then my eyes wander further down the list and i'm even more surprised by how terrible MS's console is doing there...
So interesting how some markets have completely different reactions to certain consoles/handhelds than other markets...
-Kevin
Kye @ Mar 31st 2006 9:53AM
Im calling BS on this too!
Matter of fact im calling BS on the NInty specs, anything to do with Zelda, ants, the whole PS3, The labor Party & the Democratic Government, all of China, plastic bottles and Anything Joystiq reports until its officially April 2 everywhere on the planet.
I pity the fool who tries to take me for an April Fool's Day fool!
sieth @ Mar 31st 2006 9:56AM
Still March 31st, even in japan now, although like 3 minutes left....
bandit @ Mar 31st 2006 9:57AM
The 360 has for the past few weeks broken the 1000 barrier hovering around 1500. However the big-name titles have yet to launch and backwards compatibility is abismal in japan. Fix these two things and the japanese market will go wild. Again I say to MS. Look at Japanese game magazines!!! The Top ten "greatest" games of all time from a poll of japanese gamers are. GUESS WHAT? RPGS!!! Of those RPGs the majority were sequels to an existing franchise. Oftentimes the 6,7, or 8 in the series!!!! Please get a clue MS. Japanese gamers do not enjoy games about WWII especially considering they lost that war. To be honest the way the "next" generation is shaping up, it looks as though MS will be catering exclusively to most english speaking countries and PS3 appealing to the japanese and Asian territories. I thinks its terrible to have a culture gap like that in videogames, bowever neither company is making strides to appeal to the "other" culture. Now as much as I dislike Nintendo, (I have personal reasons for this) the still make great games and can make cheap fun games. They still overcharge on dated hardware and gimmicky garbage, but they are fun. In fact I'm still ticked I bought "Feel the Magic" cute but just ok, by no means great. I actually have more fun with asphault. That being said I never play it anymore, however I wont buy a PSP, that is until an n64 or psx emulators works fairly well on it. Tekken/breath of fire3/mario kart 64 anyone?
Anyway I rant alot, but I have a ton to say about this Darn industry. Im sooooooo sick and tired of the BS involved. Im not saying this chart is BS, but rather the reason why this chart looks the way it does.
the Brayn @ Mar 31st 2006 9:59AM
"I pity the fool who tries to take me for an April Fool's Day fool!"
I think you're doing a good enough job of this on your own.
Jeremy Wright @ Mar 31st 2006 10:01AM
Nice to see the 360 gaining momentum. Total sales are at, what, 20,000 units? While it's being eclipsed by platforms that understand the Japanese, it's nice to see the little box that "would never break 10K units" doing just that.
Hopefully the recent appointment of several high profile Japanese vets'll shift this a bit so that Japanese gamers have something to really look forward to (besides all the kickass demos, heh).
Kye @ Mar 31st 2006 10:11AM
te he
Brain, good one I must admit.
*thumb up*
Just de-stressing after a long week so pay me no mind.
Kye @ Mar 31st 2006 10:13AM
Sorry, I meant Brayn.
soco @ Mar 31st 2006 10:26AM
backwards compatibility is a non-issue for japan. there are like 500,000 xboxes there and few games even got xbox releases there. even japanese games that got ported often weren't released there, like the last Castlevania.
as for the RPGs MS is working on it. next thursday we should see some more details. according to rumor it'll be the first showing of the new Namco Tales game and a port of Phantasy Star Universe, among others. there's already 2 RPGs out there and several more on the way. there are still 3 Sakaguchi RPGs in the works.
the only question is whether or not this is enough. DOA4 was giving a near perfect rating by Famitsu, scoring only 1 point behind FF12, and Nighty Nine Nights scored only 3 points (10/9/9/9) from a perfect by Famitsu 360. N3 and Blue Dragon have appeared in the top 20 most wanted games from the Famitsu readers.
it's anyones guess if anything short of a final fantasy game can get Japanese gamers to buy the 360.
i'm curious how Oblivion will do there if it gets a decent translation. it's significantly more accessible than Morrowwind so that shouldn't be as much of a problem. the German translation, although still playable, was pretty bad in parts, with entire sections remaining in English, so i'm not getting my hopes up.
striegs @ Mar 31st 2006 10:30AM
Well whaddya know, looks like the original Xbox finally surpassed the original GBA in weekly sales! Huzzah!
By the way, that black DS Lite may very well be the hottest piece of hardware porn I have seen since the PSP. Pix plz!
Barley @ Mar 31st 2006 10:50AM
I'm not sure if you guys are joking or not, but the Xbox 360 is definitely not "gaining momentum" in Japan. It has consistently sold less than the Game Cube (and pretty much everything else) for the last month or two, and hasn't broken the 2000 barrier in a long time.
Also, if you believe 1up, Final Fantasy XIII is supposed to be revealed to be a PS3 exclusive at E3 -> http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3149186 so that won't help at all.
Personally, I think that the 360 has already lost the Japanese market completely. Even if good games come out for it people will see the console as a failure for not selling through the initial shipment after nearly 4 months! Stores aren't going to want to stock the thing either, since they might not even sell one per week. Save the shelf space for PS2, PSP and the awesomeness that is the DS.
Also, for the record, there is no black DS Lite and the PS3 will not only appeal to Japanese and Asian territories, but will do at least as well as the 360. Especially if FF13 is really exclusive.
David @ Mar 31st 2006 11:17AM
You can say the 360's doing good in the U.S. or Europe or Australia, but Japan? Come on. The FIRST Xbox, widely considered a flop in Japan by even MS themselves sold 100k units in the first three days of sales. Even after four months, the 360 has yet to get even close to that initial sales amount.
So let's see...new system taking months and months to surpass old system's first three launch day sales...and the old system tanked miserably...
Yeah. I'd say it looks bad for the 360 in Japan right now. Really bad.
David
32_Footsteps @ Mar 31st 2006 11:27AM
Something that I don't see people really commenting on at the moment...
If you look at it, non-PS2 consoles, combined, are selling less than the Game Boy Micro. Portable sales (with the exception of the original iteration of the GBA) are just trouncing the consoles overall.
That's quite a shift in game sales. While portable gaming has been popular for ages, I don't think it's ever been as authoritatively strong. And it shows in both the software and the hardware sales.
Now, to some extent, the market is currently shifted towards portable sales. The current consoles are on the last legs of their development cycles, and people are mostly focused on the upcoming Sony and Nintendo platforms. Moreover, we're just now hitting the point in which both of the newest portables are starting to get the high-quality titles we'll be remembering years from now. Plus, the redesign of the DS hardware has been exactly what most of the market has been asking for, making it sell extremely well.
That all said, though, I can't help but think that this represents a noticeable shift in the video game market. Portable games are no longer merely a shadow of what can be done on consoles. Although they are not as advanced visually or aurally (particularly aurally), the games are more often than not just as immersive as their console brethren. Moreover, they are more convenient to play (since you can play in more locations), much more affordable (both software and hardware), and provide more solid gameplay features mandated by portable gaming (such as the ability to save frequently, at nearly any time.
I could be wrong, of course. But it seems to me that we're seeing a shift in the market at large to make portable devices the focus of gamers at large, and consoles will start being more the format for dedicated gamers. I reflect back on the rumors that Microsoft is pondering a portable gaming device. It seems to me that they'd be idiots if they weren't and planned to stay in video gaming. And honestly, I don't think they're idiots - maybe some other negative adjectives, but not idiots.
I have seen the future, and it is pocket-sized.
soco @ Mar 31st 2006 11:33AM
the 360 did at least pick up a rather large gain over last week:
360 -- This Week: 1.415 Last Week: 1.039 Total This Year: 30.165 (doesn't include the launch of last year)
FF13 being exclusive isn't even news. it's been said repeatedly that FF13 would be released for the PS3. the only new title the 360 might get is a port of the next MMORPG.
it's also probably not that important overall. Halo pushed almost as many copies as the Final Fantasy games from the last generation (FF12 outstanding obviously). for reference, GTA sells much better than any of the Final Fantasy games (or Halo games for that matter).
the 360 is certainly down in japan, but it's not out by a long shot. the numbers are incredibly low, but stable, and as we've seen with other systems, a single game can spark a significant change.
Paul @ Mar 31st 2006 11:49AM
What is up with Square/Enix's love affair with Sony? How hard would it be to port a game like Final Fantasy? It seems like they would make a ton of money if they went multiplatform with major games like that. Nobody in Japan would buy the X-box version, but I'm sure some Americans would.
Pixelantes Anonymous @ Mar 31st 2006 11:49AM
Portable gaming devices will never gain as big of a marketshare outside Japan as they have there. There're cultural reasons why portable devices and other "on-the-go" doodats are very popular in Japan.
Americans like to drive cars. It's not quite the best environment for portable gaming.
The use of public transportation is much more common in Japan, and that is exactly the type of environment portable gaming devices are made for.
silverSurfer @ Mar 31st 2006 12:24PM
Why are the Japanese hardware sales the only ones to get posted? I would like to see Europe and North America sales too.
Art Guy @ Mar 31st 2006 12:32PM
How come we rarely get the American and European numbers?
Art Guy @ Mar 31st 2006 12:36PM
silverSurfer - Great minds think alike. I had sent my message right before yours showed up.
Terabithia @ Mar 31st 2006 12:37PM
For anyone who's really anal about the whole Xbox 360 in Japan thing, here's the weekly totals since launch. (Source M-Create via Gamasutra)
Dec 11: 43970
Dec 18: 8623
Dec 25: 5600
Jan 01: 12300
Jan 08: 7477
Jan 15: 6115
Jan 22: 3616
Jan 29: 1976
Feb 05: 2194
Feb 12: 1288
Feb 19: 1314
Feb 26: 1203
Mar 05: 1240
Mar 12: 1296
Mar 19: 1039
Mar 26: 1415
Total thus far: 100666.
Congratulations 360, on breaking 100K units.
Well, as you can see, no game has had any impact whatsoever on Japanese Xbox 360 sales except DOA4, which came out the week ending Jan 1st. Taking that into consideration, I highly doubt any game will resurrect this console once the PS3 is released.
In other words, if nothing happens before November, the Xbox 360 will sell roughly 400K to 500K consoles in its 5 year lifetime (1200 consoles per week for five years, minus the sixteen weeks listed adds less than 300K to the 100K already sold). Assuming it doesn't become like the current Xbox and sell less than 150 per week, that is.
Oh, and soco- Why even mention GTA when we are talking about Japan, where FFXII sold over a million units in its first week? Just wondering.
At least the whole "anti-US" crap hasn't picked up in these comments yet.
Grendel Pr1me @ Mar 31st 2006 12:37PM
I'm just starting to wonder if there is anybody left in Japan who doesn't have a PS2.
At this point, I'm of the belief that there is someone, somewhere building a house out of PS2s.
Squiggle @ Mar 31st 2006 12:41PM
ArtGuy and silverSurfer:
For UK/Australian sales and GameFly rentals charts see Gamasutra.
Ninegauger @ Mar 31st 2006 12:47PM
I think it's because the only place that even tries to keep track doesn't include Walmart, the biggest retailer,thus their numbers are inaccurate. They don't release their numbers weekly anyway. That's why we only know how many units Sony ships, like it's some accomplishment to ship units to a store.
I still can't believe that the old DS is still outselling the PSP. I wonder if they're settling or if they prefer that model.
skyrous @ Mar 31st 2006 12:49PM
We don't see european or american sales numbers because they're simply not tracked as closely in those regions. Billboard magazine's soundscan system tracks every CD sold in america. Videogames being so popular in Japan they have a similiar system in place in japan tracking videogame sales.
official numbers from other regions don't come out until the company release their annual reports.
Spiza @ Mar 31st 2006 1:04PM
The numbers that I would like to see is software sold for each console. I remember looking at the list of top 50 games sold of this gen (cube, ps2, xbox) and seeing several gamecube titles on the list, but few xbox titles. The PS2 also a lot of titles on the list, but the gamecube was very close. I'm guessing from this that the gamecube possibly had the best software sold to consoles sold ratio, even with its long draughts in quality games being released. We all know that the ds is also killing the psp in games sold, but how would these numbers effect the US numbers? The PSP is probably outselling the DS here in the states, but are they selling much software to go along with that?
And since someone brought up the point of being able to save in mobile games, I totally agree. The mario games are a much better experience on the gba. How many times did I play those first levels in both SMB and SMB3 while playing some of the later levels very little. Its nice to be able to jump in and play any level. Another point is from games like Metroid Prime and RE4, where there are only save points. Why not enable a "save and quit" feature? You save, but have to quit the game. When you load your game back up (your profile as well), you have to start from that spot. The saved game is then erased so you can't start your game from there several times. Now how hard is that?
fawazr @ Mar 31st 2006 1:14PM
The amazing thing is that each DS sold is all profit for Nintendo.
Making money off of hardware and then using that money to invest into developing great software... what a novel idea!
Rocket Punch @ Mar 31st 2006 1:15PM
May be if FFXII is a title for the 360, they might have enough sale to challange for the 7th spot......
wonderflex @ Mar 31st 2006 1:17PM
"Total thus far: 100666.
Congratulations 360, on breaking 100K units."
I think it's hillarious that the DS Lite has sold more each week than the 360 has sold since December.
Don @ Mar 31st 2006 1:42PM
Ahhhh, I can hear it now. The sweet sound of all the Sony fanboys last year before the PSP launched and how it would totally can completely annihilate the DS in sales.
Where are those silly fanboys now now that the "child's toy" is totally dominating sales in Japan... Sony's own home country?
You can take all the other systems COMBINED and still not equal DS sales in the land of the rising sun right now.
ZildjianKX @ Mar 31st 2006 1:48PM
Data from Terabithia's post graphed:
http://home.comcast.net/~jefferson.scott/360.jpg
My God it looks bad...
Draco @ Mar 31st 2006 2:02PM
what would make that graph look better is if they got rid of the launch figure, then got rid of the values so you can only see the graph not what it represents, then it looks like the 360 is a pretty consistant console, and looks quite nice :P
Squiggle @ Mar 31st 2006 2:13PM
@Spiza-
Some new console games are doing this already. It is a "suspend" feature found in Fire Emblem for the Game Cube and helps a LOT since some battles take a long time and would not be fun to have to start over. I agree that it is a good feature to have, and should be included in all games with save feature.
@skyrous-
As mentioned earlier, you can get UK and Australia weekly game sales, but I think US is a monthly thing. I'm fairly sure that wherever there are sales, someone is tracking them. The thing to look for would be a good website that makes nice tables and charts and all that, kinda like boxofficemojo or leesmovieinfo do for movie tickets.
Nmaster @ Mar 31st 2006 2:45PM
I love all this "360 is gaining momentum!" talk...
The thing can't even beat the GameCube, but M$ lovers are rejoicing over a few hundred extra system sales. Talk about clinging to a thread of hope...
Face it, no amount of RPGs or Japanese games are going to make the Xbox a hit over there. If it were any worse of a flop we'd have to call it the Virtual Boy 360...
Art Guy @ Mar 31st 2006 2:49PM
Squiggle - I don't need to go to other sites for my information since I get actual sales numbers sent to me. It just seems odd that this site focuses on the Japanese market, while the American and European markets are becoming far more important than Japan. It's similar to just focusing on how many games are sold at EB Games, opposed to all merchants.
Spiza - The GameCube has the lowest attach rate of any of the current consoles. That is one of the major reasons why it has such bad third party support. GameCube titles on average sell have as many units as Xbox titles, which in turn sell half as many units as PS2 titles. MicroSoft has the highest attach rate for both software and accessories, Sony has the highest total software and hardware sales, but Nintendo makes the most profit.
ry @ Mar 31st 2006 2:52PM
Hey #5, the Japanese are gonna go "wild" for backwards compatibility? Umm, no one there cared about the first xbox enough to own the games that would go on theBC list. MS is smart, in this case, not wasting resources getting that working in a market that never gave a shit to begin with.
don_sf @ Mar 31st 2006 3:07PM
look how many version of the same things there are.
nds and nds lite
den gba, gba micro, gba sp
you should just by the ds lite.
and er by the way, xbox 180-360 is rubbish. erhem.
Squiggle @ Mar 31st 2006 3:20PM
Art Guy-
It may sound bad, but I think Joystiq only publishes Japanese sales because they (both the sales and the Joystiq contributors) seem pro-Nintendo. The other weekly sales figures and GameFly rentals are much different, with little mention of the big N at all.
(not that I mind, my purchasing habits tend to be fairly "Japanese")
Dorf on Golf 4 @ Mar 31st 2006 4:12PM
Japanese sales are important because that is where most of the games are coming from. Japan is console HQ. People dont post them because they 'love Nintendo', they do it because this is the home turf.
It's just sad that since the 360 hasn't picked up any support from Japan, that means that no really good titles will ever be released on it. It will pretty much cement the PS3 as being the dominating platform again.
rip @ Mar 31st 2006 4:38PM
wow, more gamecubes sold than xbox 360's. So sad.
On the positive side, Microsoft is guaranteed that at some point (about this time next year) the 360 will dominate the Gamecube in sales. And the 360 totally punks the n64 in sales. So it has that going for it...
Sven @ Mar 31st 2006 5:12PM
Bad thing about the DS sales numbers:
Until Nintendo stops selling through their stock of Lites on a week-to-week basis in Japan, odds of the rest of the planet getting it are slim.
And I'd agree that the Japanese market still is disproportionately important in terms of the gaming world as a whole - it is, after all, the home market of two out of the three major players in the industry as well as a lot of other major publishers. While Microsoft's continuing inability to crack the market isn't much of a surprise (the XBox family of consoles has been built on the shoulders of FPS games, which don't go over well in Japan), they certainly poured lots of marketing money into the Japanese market in an attempt to grab some more market share this time around. Their abject failure to do so affected the allocation of X-Boxes in the rest of the world, and wound up hurting the 360 and the industry in general.
While I don't think the Japanese market is truly going to go all-portable, all-the-time (the current charts are skewered by Sony and Nintendo both being in something of a slow season aside from the FFXII surge), they do seem far more accepting of a portable as a primary gaming device than North America. It's an interesting subplot to the DS' rampage.
mr.blonde @ Mar 31st 2006 5:25PM
After years of trying the xbox has finally managed to drag itself up from the bottom! and i thought the only reason why the original GBA is still being sold was just to humiliate the xbox.
Donutta @ Mar 31st 2006 6:25PM
Who gives a shit about how the consoles are doing in Japan? Do any of you live there? I only care about how consoles are doing in my own country, since that determines what shops actually stock what titles for what systems. For example, the GCN might have carved up the Xbox in Japan, but that didn't save the GCN from the wrath of a million retailers who all stopped stocking it.
It's not even about the games either. Half of the games that are big sellers in Japan aren't released outside of it, and I highly doubt another Gundam game or Train Driver Super Happy Fun 3 will appeal to the average Western gamer. The reason the PS2 got so many exclusives is because the thing has sold 100 million units worldwide -- only 25 million or so were sold in the Asian region with the USA and PAL markets making up the rest. Japan isn't that important, so I don't know why everyone gets their knickers in a twist about how consoles are doing there.
yjs @ Mar 31st 2006 6:44PM
Uhm Donutta I think we care about the Japan charts because at least half of the good games in the industry come from there. Oh, and maybe because two of the three console manufacturers are from there too.
And maybe it's fun to see how much ass the DS Lite is kicking too.
mike @ Mar 31st 2006 7:07PM
PSP: Suck. It. Down. Beeetch.
As usual DS phat ownz the PS2.
Slow news day?
;)
idioteraser @ Mar 31st 2006 7:23PM
Shipped one hundred million units not sold. Sony and Microsoft don't release their consumer sales figures for their consoles.
Nintendo is the only one. Every retailer replaced PS2 is a shipped unit. Considering that sony is looking to settle a lawsuit over defective PS2s you can bet a lot of that 100 million is replacements. Also people who bought it for a dvd player but who never bought a game. Each ps2 sold at a loss to the company. No wonder Nintendo makes more money on the gamecube then Sony does.
The reason the japanese market gets mentioned is because they keep track of it more accuretly then American newservices do.
Also Japan is where you can often see a trend. The brain training games if they recreate the buzz in America will cause the sales of DSs to go through the roof.
It should be noted that a lot of the recent DS purchases are not by people that own a DS or even a videogame console. It's by nongamers. Old people. The english training sold half a million copies so far. That isn't a game. The kanji caligraphy program is also considered to be a huge hit. As is the cookbook. Imagine what would happen if the Bob Ross painting game for the DS was considered excellent. How many people that would have avoided picking up a game system would after trying a demo decide to pick it up? I would wager a large number would.
Every news site mentions the Japan sales because they acurate Japan is the first place for New games, New systems. It is where the trends emerge. Not all of them come over here but the ones that do skyrocket.
SND @ Mar 31st 2006 8:15PM
Do you guys ever have US hardware sales?
DownloadingData @ Mar 31st 2006 9:18PM
"Do you guys ever have US hardware sales?" -SND
It may sound bad, but I think Joystiq only publishes Japanese sales because they (both the sales and the Joystiq contributors) seem pro-Nintendo. -Squiggle
I don't think it's that joystiq doesn't want to post US/European sales numbers. They are simply NOT AVALIABLE.
The Japanese weekly sales are being collected and recorded by Media Create www.m-create.com
Not only is it very reliable, but it is also free and has open access to the public.
However, by comparison the US figures are extremely difficult to obtain, because it is simply not free and cost thousands of US dollars to purchase the report from NPD.
http://www.npdfunworld.com/funServlet?nextpage=store_content.html
On top of it, the US sales report is only released monthly.
So, there is a good chance that you will not see the US sales avaliable on any public sites.
Donutta @ Mar 31st 2006 9:21PM
"Do you guys ever have US hardware sales?"
Exactly. Japan is a different country and a different culture. You can't judge trends based on what happens in Japan -- Just because Nintendogs did well doesn't mean everything the Japanese take too is going to do well in the West. If that were true, Ayumi Hamasaki would have been carving up the charts for about a decade now.
Besides, what games are released in the United States or in PAL territories has never had anything to do with how well they've sold in Japan. Again, if that were true, there'd be a lot more train simulators and dating sims on the shelves.
Of course, I'm biased. While my entire collection was almost Japanese back in the 16-bit days, not even a fifth of my collection is Japanese now. I suppose that's because I'm perfectly happy to pass on stuff like Death By Degrees. ;)
DocEvil @ Mar 31st 2006 9:26PM
I think one big factor not being mentioned is that a lot of people across the whole world (-especially- Japan) are 'waiting and seeing'.
Japan has historically been far better served by Sony and Nintendo. Sure MS is trying hard to appeal to japanese gamers and I think they are definitely being atleast noticed but the one huge factor working against them on Sony's and Nintendo's home turf is information, or I should say lack of it.
You could fill an encyclopedia with the information we don't know about Sony's and Nintendo's next consoles. The final hardware and final dev kits haven't even been completed let alone actual playable games.
For a japanese consumer, with so little known about PS3 and Rev, purchasing a 360 at this point would represent a significant 'risk' investment. How many people the world over are interested in the 360 but are completely unwilling to buy -anything- until they atleast see playable content from both Sony and Nintendo?