Japanese hardware sales, April 14 - April 20: Endangered edition

by Griffin McElroy { Apr 27th 2008 at 10:15PM }

As the devious rapscallions who skip to the figures every week already know, the nation of Japan (and indirectly, the entire planet) is facing a dire emergency. No, not overpopulation, or global warming, or the biodiversity crisis -- I speak, of course, of the pending disappearance of all video game consoles from the face of the Earth, clearly evidenced by this week's underwhelming sales charts.

These lackluster sales figures couldn't possibly represent a decline in the ludological avarice of the Japanese people -- so what could be the cause for all the downpointery? Mankind's interference in the natural habitat of these illustrious creatures? Some sort of self-destructive behavior? Scientists and industry analysts are working around the clock to solve this dilemma before the gaming ecosystem collapses upon itself, leaving humanity with just one method of self-entertainment: Ball in a Cup. However, cheap Ball in a Cup knock-offs will surely follow, leading to the inevitable crash of the Ball in a Cup market, at which point we'll really be screwed.

To help prevent this near-certain extinction, the Joystiq crew has begun organizing "Console Aid 2008", a summer concert series that will sweep through the Pacific Northwest like a philanthropic plague. With headliners such as Tay Zonday, Rick Astley, O' Reely n' teh Buckets, and (obligatorily) U2, we're sure to garner millions in ticket sales -- a breathtakingly charitable 4 percent of which will go toward the Video Game Preservation Fund. What? Blogger's gotta eat.

- PSP: 85,421

300 (0.35%)
- DS Lite: 44,551

2,607 (5.53%)
- Wii: 44,241

2,055 (4.44%)
- PS3: 7,438

794 (9.65%)
- PS2: 6,545

289 (4.23%)
- Xbox 360: 1,076

71 (6.19%)

[Source: Media Create]

See: The dwindling archives

Tags: japanese-hardware-sa..., japanesehardwaresales

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ninjakamster @ Apr 27th 2008 10:21PM

God damn! Are those PSP sales STILL due to Monster Hunter!?!?

fwacce @ Apr 27th 2008 10:37PM

No, the system really is that good. For a system that really stumbled out of the box with lack of games and UMD issues, it really has come into its own and become quite the must have system.

samfish @ Apr 27th 2008 10:39PM

Yes.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 27th 2008 10:39PM

PARIALLY due to Monster Hunter. PSP has had a resurgence since the 2000s dropped.

Halwende @ Apr 27th 2008 10:42PM

@Ninjakamster

I think so, Monster Hunter has sold about 1.8M units so far and is the second in the sales charts to Mario Kart Wii. Last week it sold 145,000 copies. The next PSP game in the list sold 10,000... (!)

Source: http://www.vgchartz.com/japweekly.php

Ninjakamster @ Apr 27th 2008 10:55PM

I have an Ice Silver PSP-2000 myself, its been great when I have to be away from my precious laptop and other electronic entertainment devices.

I don't play it too much but I can't imagine being without it either.

Its great to see competition in the handheld arena where Nintendo has alway dominated, each system has carved out their own great niche.

JRM @ Apr 28th 2008 2:09AM

No. It's because everyone in Japan ALREADY has a DS. The PSP is now becoming the "Sloppy seconds" of portable consumers--at least until Nintendo releases a new colour (likely some shade of pink for the people in Japan) or new DS model.

Nerds With Attitude @ Apr 27th 2008 10:42PM

Wow. I sort of feel like I got Rick Roll'd in a strange sort of way.

Also, I'd totally go see O' Reely n' teh Buckets.

Lone Starr @ Apr 27th 2008 11:08PM

uuiU

j.howlett @ Apr 27th 2008 10:45PM

when i first picked up ball in a cup it was frustrating and hard. hard and frustrating. but i kept at it. i started to get lucky then i started to get good. then i could string together victory after victory. then in the end i got bored and haven't touched it in weeks.

jackbauer(ssbb:0087-2222-7531) @ Apr 27th 2008 10:51PM

no one wants to hear about the inactivity of your penis.

Donald @ Apr 27th 2008 10:46PM

Will 360 and PS3 sales go up alot next week because of GTA4 or are they not into that as much in Japan?

josh @ Apr 27th 2008 11:30PM

It's not coming out in Japan, not next week anyway.

jackbauer(ssbb:0087-2222-7531) @ Apr 27th 2008 10:52PM

damn i just raised my neighborhood insurance rates

RatBoy @ Apr 28th 2008 8:46AM

I live every day in fear of the coming Ball in Cup crash.

Gamer XoverY @ Apr 27th 2008 11:12PM

Joystiq ..... Global Warming is not funny. YOU SUCK!!!

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 27th 2008 11:33PM

Global warming is very funny. Let me tell you why...

1. Every reputable scientist in this field will not tell you that global warming is a truth but rather we don't know enough about the Earth's history to start dictating our impact. In fact, so many scientist laugh blatantly in the face of most "go green" people.

2. The North American region is actually exiting what many scientists claim is a mini cooling period and despite the rants and raves about this weather being too hot and global warming, etc, we are ACTUALLY closer to our climate from 200 years ago than we were during the 50s, the period many "go green" scientist claim was the more appropriate climate period.

3. Humans have only been studying the planet for only so many hundreds of years. It's actually quite older than us so in the long run, we do not have a single clue what is normal and what isn't. Likewise, once upon a time, our atmosphere could support life as large as dinosaurs but nowadays an Elephant is the largest we can support.

4. Any attempts from mankind to alter or protect environments has ALWAYS managed to make the area worse than it was. There has NEVER been an exception to this rule. Nature is nature and we're such a miniscule part of it.

That's why I enjoy making fun of global warming. Because from my personal experience, a vast majority of the people who feel so passionately about this issue have never done any research beyond watching An Inconvenient Truth.

Should something be done to lower emmissions, etc? Yeah, of course we should. Are we facing extinction in the short term? No, no we're not.

Chyld989 (MKWii: 5241-2307-2882) @ Apr 27th 2008 11:35PM

...global warming is a LITTLE funny.

Lone Starr @ Apr 27th 2008 11:51PM

I go to video game sites to get away from this kind of thing...

mr nimblewick @ Apr 28th 2008 12:03AM

@ Sir Fidlious Wong

Hm... I'm actually going to go with the scientific community over a joystiq poster and the bush administration on this one.

Can you not see the problem with the conflicting claims that we are exiting a cool period from 200 years ago but don't know anything about the earth's history past 100 years?

Truth is, we do know much of the history through records of crop harvests, geological data, etc. And even if we didn't, we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that we're putting a lot of it into the atmosphere, and that the temperature is rising globally to a point that it will become hazardous to ourselves and the ecosystem.

With those in mind, how could it be anything but responsible to try to reverse that trend?

And "going green" is about a lot more than global warming. For instance, protecting our dwindling water supplies. It won't be too long before we're fighting about water instead of oil.

mr nimblewick @ Apr 28th 2008 12:11AM

Sorry, I misread your statement about how long we have been studying the earth. Though it still remains that no matter what the earth used to be like, we still have to worry about what the earth is becoming. I live on a coast, and I don't want to have to swim up to my porch.

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 28th 2008 12:52AM

An ice age will clear that right up. What's that? Day After Tomorrow doesn't count as a global warming movie because it's actually about creating an ice age because we globally warmed the earth too much? That's crazy.

If the world were to catastrophically warm up to the point no life existed wouldn't it eventually have to cool down anyway? What no? Global cycles of weather don't occur? That's like saying the earth is flat.

ill trooper @ Apr 28th 2008 1:44AM

Fid. Wong: "In fact, so many scientist laugh blatantly in the face of most "go green" people."

?

It's this "Global Laughing" you're talking about that isn't happening. What's that from, 'Fox News Science Hour' or the 'Intelligent Design Seminar'? It would be stupid pride from a scientist (or concern over his/her Bush Administration grant money) to act like the human race isn't having long-term negative impact on the ecosystem... I wouldn't trust a scientist who 'laughs' at the idea of "going green." That's like Al Unser Jr. laughing about wearing a seatbelt.

gameplayFanBoy @ Apr 28th 2008 2:01AM

Global warming is a serious issue guys, if we pull together as a global community and kill all the cows and buy hybrid cars and....sorry couldn't keep a straight face.

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 28th 2008 2:11AM

Dang nabbit Intelligent Design is NOT the same as Creationism. It says the universe/god(s)/aliens/Atlantis/ some sort of higher intelligence influenced certain traits to be inherited through evolution to create humanity. Human DNA shares a great similarity with many animals and plants and we have many characters and personalities that can be found in the animal kingdom. The universe inherited all these traits into humanity.

Evolution says the most desirable traits have the most chances at offspring. More offspring means those traits are inherited down since they often reproduce and inherit those traits more often. It's not necessarily survival of the fittest, only one man stands and the other buried. There's the evolution of cows for instance.

Cows have four teets on their udder for milk; however, cows only have one calf a year and very rarely have twins. Cows were bred, evolved, and intelligently designed by humanity to produce milk and the traits such as more milk producing glands and for longer periods of time are desirable. The cows with the desirable traits of producing more milk are bred so those desirable traits are inherited. This had led over many years from wild cattle into a domesticated super milk producer.

And Fidlious wasn't saying Global Warming isn't a problem. He's just saying it's not some sort of crisis level where if it were there wouldn't be anything we could do about it.

Worst Review Ever @ Apr 28th 2008 2:11AM

I don't usually agree with Fidlious, but he's right.

First of all, there's no such thing as a "global temperature" which is the root problem with the whole global warming thing. A global temperature does not exist. Everybody got that?
Second of all, the doom and gloom CO2 percentage increase every year is laughable. CO2 makes up such a miniscule percentage of the earth's atmosphere that, scientifically, it's next to impossible that it could actually DO anything, let alone cause everyone's balls implode, or whatever the fuck global warming enthusiasts claim is going to happen.
Last of all, the entire crux that "global warmers" lean on is the bullshit propaganda that the glaciers are melting. Are they? Yeah, some of them. But the east Antarctic Ice sheet, you know, the one glacier that's about 100 times bigger than every other glacier combined, that one is getting thicker. Uh oh...
I can't wait until some dumbshit politician starts bitching about "global cooling" and every idiot in the world jumps on it like it's the next fucking Y2K, or El Nino, or whatever the hell it was that was going to kill everyone before global warming came along.

Joeshie @ Apr 28th 2008 2:12AM

"1. Every reputable scientist in this field will not tell you that global warming is a truth but rather we don't know enough about the Earth's history to start dictating our impact."

What the hell are you talking about? Go take any college level geology course. We know TONS about the Earth's history. Just looking through the soil gives us tons of information about the past.

You criticize others of not doing enough information, but from the sound of it, you haven't done enough either.

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 28th 2008 2:33AM

I was unaware we could look at rocks and see minute to minute weather nor even yearly changes on them. Only the past couple hundred years have we been able to record temperatures, air particulates, and all sorts of other weather properties to help us predict future weather. Or that dinosaurs could only have survived because the temperatures, CO2, and O2 levels were much higher than now.

JakubK666 (Ninja Defence Force) @ Apr 28th 2008 3:01AM

@Sir Fidelus

We've actually learned a lot by digging deep into soil/ice then analysing it, so it's not like we have no idea what's going on.

Scientists have even managed to produce a temperature graph for the last couple of million years.And according to that data, Temperature swings as well as Ice-ages are perfectly natural.

Wes @ Apr 28th 2008 3:56AM

@Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force)
I always felt you were kind of snobbish and in many of your postings a bit rude? short? mean? to others but have never posted anything in response to your comments you make on JoyStiq.

After that post of global warming, I had to violate this usual pacifist attitude and tell you what an idiot I think you are. Global warming is a current threat to our survival and going green really does help. Just look at the rice shortages in Australia have caused all over the world.

Increase the world's population mean population by 4-5 degrees and you get an increase rate of polar ice cap melting which results in flooding and a smaller land mass available for food production. In addition, many types of crops will wither and die with too much heat and/or droughts.

Scientists don't laugh at people and companies trying to go green. They laugh at people who try to go green through rediculous methods and buy into going-green marketing. For example: Oh look, Wal-mart says if I buy their water bottles, I'll prevent 1,000 tons of oil a year in transportation and making of the plastics becaues of their special low-plastic design!'

When they could just drink water from the tap which in most areas is perfectly healthy instead of bottled water and decrease the supply for bottled water in the first place causing less bottles to be created/transported and less polution from the production/transportation.

hvnlysoldr @ Apr 28th 2008 12:40PM

Congratulations JabuK666 you've just proven Fidlious' point. It's a natural cycle of cooling and warming. It's not a crisis.

ThePremierAssassin @ Apr 27th 2008 11:10PM

ZZZZZZZZ

Battlefield: Bad Company beta is about to end I think...let me get my last fix of Goldrush in b4 I'm cut off...

Deck @ Apr 27th 2008 11:52PM

Great post guys! Rockzorz!

Lolz

Leonidas @ Apr 28th 2008 1:29AM

People always forget about the single greatest greenhouse gas. Water vapor, which cannot be controlled by humans, is a much greater greenhouse gas than Carbon.

Worst Review Ever @ Apr 28th 2008 2:14AM

The gas that you produce while farting, methane, is more hazardous to the environment than CO2 could ever be. Better put a cork in it, global warming crowd.

mr nimblewick @ Apr 28th 2008 11:42PM

Not true. The methane we produce is created from what we eat... which, down the food chain, ends in plants, which take CO2 out of the air, so the net impact is zero. CO2 emissions from cars is taking carbon that was not already in the atmosphere and putting it there.