Rumor: Wii games face disappointing first day sales in Japan

This seems to be becoming a trend, but the handful of Wii games that were released this week in Japan are reported to have had poor first day sales. They were all third-party titles, which is also somewhat worrisome. Here's a look at the numbers:

• Chocobo's Dungeon (Square Enix) - 30,000 (30% sell through of initial amount shipped)
• NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Sega) - 7,000 (10% sell through)
• Soul Calibur Legends (Bandai Namco) - 5,000 (10% sell through)
• We Love Golf (Capcom) - 4,000 (10% sell through)
• Shikigami no Shiro III (Arc System Works) - 500

Granted, these are only rumored first day sales, and we'll have to wait until later in the week to get a better grip on the situation, but as of now it doesn't look good.

So, what do we make of these numbers? If they're correct, is it bad news for the Wii and third-party developers, or just more evidence that Japan is shying away from console gaming? While the latter is certainly a factor, third parties certainly can't be happy to see low numbers. However, it's way too early to ring a death knell for any of these games, even if these numbers are correct. We'll just have to wait and see how these games perform in the next few weeks.

[Via Cubed3]