Japanese hardware sales, July 21 - July 27: Expansion edition

by Griffin McElroy { Aug 3rd 2008 at 9:00PM }

We've grown quite content to simply sit on our fat surpluses and crank out Japanese hardware sales charts to the enraptured masses week after week -- however, the all-important figures you see at the bottom of every entry seem to always get lost in a maelstrom of eloquent prose. We thought long and hard about how to improve the format of these posts without changing the time-tested formula that has served us so well over the years -- surprisingly, we decided to take a cue from the MMO market. Yes, after months of silent development, we're proud to announce the first ever expansion to this distinguished feature: Japanese Hardware Sales: Rise of the Lavender Fluke.

This exciting addition is currently in ultra-secret closed epsilon testing, and the feedback we've been receiving has been entirely positive. Well, except for all the complaints, bug reports, vulgar e-mails, death threats, and one actual attempt on our lives. Aside from that, we're pretty optimistic that we can hit the Q1 2009 release date we set for ourselves -- though our development team mistook Q1 2009 to mean "one quinquennium from 2009", so it should actually be arriving sometime in 2014. Trust us, it's worth it.

We've got the full list of updates and changes featured in JHS:RotLF posted after the jump. Make sure you check them out -- but not before paying your dues to the facts and figures posted below. We would hate for you to miss any of the excitement.

- PSP: 67,452

6,572 (8.88%)
- DS Lite: 56,968

2,437 (4.47%)
- Wii: 41,024

221 (0.54%)
- PS3: 10,692

561 (4.99%)
- PS2: 9,291

244 (2.56%)
- Xbox 360: 4,941

733 (17.42%)

[Source: Media Create]

See: The pre-expansion archives

The titular "Lavender Fluke" will be introduced into the weekly sales charts. This rogue operative will occasionally attempt to usurp the reigning powers of the Red and Green Arrows, noting when console sales go neither up nor down -- but rather, slightly northeast.

Level cap lowered to 31. Commenters above level 31 will have their profiles swiftly erased, and will be forced to start over again.

Commenters who type the word "Butterscotch" when replying to Japanese hardware sales posts will no longer spontaneously burst into flames.

Every post will be accompanied by an audio version of that week's sales charts, as narrated by Maya Angelou.

Sales figures for the Virtual Boy, R-Zone and Game.Com will be added to the weekly chart.

Every third post will be written while the author is remarkably inebriated.

The font size for the weekly sales chart will be increased to 128, and the font style changed to Lucinda Sans Unicode.

Every post will now also include Icelandic hardware sales charts. Hvernig Æsandi!

Due to the amount of labor going into the expansion (not to mention the bloated salary of Mrs. Angelou), readers will be charged a subscription fee for reading the Japanese/Icelandic hardware sales. Readers can either pay a monthly fee of $14.99 to read that month's posts, or can elect to pay $3.7475 to read only the post from that week.

Punctuation usage, will increase -- Two-hundred, and forty-four percent!!!

Tags: japanese-hardware-sales, japanesehardwaresales

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Thatoneguy64 @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:13PM

Butterscotch

Anonim @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:58PM

Beta was sucessf...AGRH!!!FLAMES!.
Fire, fire.... hel..m..

Neebs @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:58PM

Butterscotch

Donald @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:17PM

Can I haz yur buttersctoch?

Erwos @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:15PM

It would be hilarious, if after all this time, the 360 finally started hitting sales parity with the PS3 in Japan.

browntown @ Aug 4th 2008 12:35AM

Once tales of vesparia hits, it will outsell the ps3, but then sales will slowly go down to aroudn 2 k until the holidays, or next big release, the ps3 i think will settle around 8 k by the time another japanese oriented (non shooter) game comes out, im gonna go ahead and guess little big planet.

EliteBeatsAgent08 @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:17PM

Kudos to Nintendo although they're destroying the industry...

Lol at the ps3...

Aww xbox 360...the lil engine that could.

4MyFriends @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:57PM

"Kudos to Nintendo although they're destroying the industry..."

Cry the fuck more.

EliteBeatsAgent08 @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:27PM

Lol 4MyFriends I was being sarcastic. I actually agree with you wholeheartedly regarding all the crying Joystiq and everyone else seems to be doing on a dialy basis when it comes to Nintendo.

I guess you didn't read the long thread that followed your first post in the other story...

Anyways to summarize I am a proud Wii owner and a proud 360 owner.

The Wii is not destroying anything.

Hardcore gamers are the ones who are losing it. Not Nintendo.

el serpiente @ Aug 4th 2008 12:13AM

EliteBeatsAgent08 = ThePremierAssasin=ThePerfectCompanion

It's easy to smell you out by your stupid...

The Fatass of Posts-too-muchness @ Aug 4th 2008 12:48AM

Ey yo Elite Beat, I'm a proud Wii owner too, and yet saying that Nintendo's mistake is a fabrication is a fabrication in and of itself. See, when a company like Nintendo says they're gonna maximize on their key franchises and that the hardcore gamer is gonna be happy about something they're gonna do, and then push a crushing dissapointment like their E3 conference, it's hard to not call that a mistake. Especially when they turn around and tell us that gamers should be 'really excited' about Animal Crossing and GTA (don't get me wrong, I'm excited about Animal Crossing, but that's not much).

Perhaps it doesn't warrant the backlash Nintendo has been getting lately, but honestly, to hear that we were gonna get the games we've been waiting for and witness an entire hour and a half devoted to three games (which weren't what most gamers would consider hardcore)... that's kind of a crushing blow. Especially to those of us, myself included, who once considered ourselves Nintendo fanboys.

tmacairjordan87 @ Aug 4th 2008 1:14AM

Hey 4myfriends isn't your mouth really dry by now?

Also yeah it is really easy to tell when perfectcompanion changes his name. Funny how you say you don't care what people think of you on here then you change your name and, for a while, act reasonable and keep the sony bashing to a very light level.

But in the end you just can't contain your stupidity and you blow your cover again.

EliteBeatsAgent08 @ Aug 4th 2008 7:19AM

And tmac and el serp are still the arrogant lil sony fanboys they always have been.

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Aug 4th 2008 7:47AM

As soon as PS3 starts acting like a Japanese console, it will do better in Japan. Same with 360.

Mr Khan @ Aug 4th 2008 12:46PM

Sheppy's right. After complete and utter domination of Japan last time around, Sony assumed that the only battleground of this generation would be the Xbox's strong suit: North America, and tailored their console to compete in North America

But that was way back when, when this generation was supposed to be all about PS3 vs 360, and nobody knew or cared about what Nintendo was up to

playwhutyalike @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:19PM

Rob Schneider says: "C'mon 360, you can do eeet!"

Ben @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:27PM

The 360 is definitely under-appreciated in Japan. I'm surprised though... it's only being outsold by the PS3 2-to-1 at the moment? I would expect Sony to be in a much better position than that in their homeland.

Phantom @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:34PM

@ Ben

Once FF13 releases , the PS3 will probably be like 300 dollars ( maybe they'll will announce a new 40gig , at 300 dollars , since the 80gig is going down to 400) , and the Japanese people will flock to get FF13 for their recently purchased system .

DangerMouse @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:55PM

Does he really still say that? I haven't seen a new Sandler movie in years.

Whitedragon101 @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:11PM

@ Phantom

I think your a wee bit confused. The 80 gig that is coming out is merely a 40 gig version with a bigger hard drive. This means no back compat. The 40 is discontinued, therefore, there is no ps3 for $300

Phantom @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:23PM

Whitedragon ,

I can dream . But I already own a PS3 so whatever . Now if they could lower the price of th PSP , and then bestbuy did a 30% off sale , that would be awesome .

Ghede @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:20PM

Butterscotch!
... Phew. Thanks for that one. I was holding that in for weeks.

Now to get some celebratory Rum Raisin... AGGHHHFUGAAAHHHHHHH

dan @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:21PM

Im confused about that whole "lavender" thing described above. Is that supposed to be a joke and if its not could someone explain to me what the whole thing is because i cant seem to figure it our

Will @ Aug 4th 2008 1:19AM

If you combine the red arrows and the green arrows you get a purple/lavender arrow. Hence the "fluke." Also it isn't pointing straight up or down, it's off to the side.

Phantom @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:23PM

Also , joystiq reader count will increase -%5000 .

Plus, delay's will increase 10-fold .

Also ......
Butterscotch

Phantom @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:27PM

Sorry for the double post .

This program will have a simulatiounis release with my de-fanboy-ism and grammer patch .

But for now . 360 sucks , PS3 rules . I bet the only reason 360 has sold more is because everybody already went thru like 3 360's .

tehe ... flameshields ACTIVATE

Vcize @ Aug 4th 2008 10:16AM

Except replacement 360's are free, not purchased...

deaftly @ Aug 4th 2008 11:23AM

Phantom, stick to ps3fanboy.com your "humor" will prob go better with the other sheep there. baaahhhh

tc @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:24PM

I hópé thát púnctúátíón íncréásés fúrthér. Sáy: Thréé Húndréd Pércént?

j.howlett @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:36PM

bump that. i'm not paying for this, and only weekly updates. i'll stick around through epsilon and maybe further, but when they start charging i'm out. and you know you'll be nicked and dimed for south westerdly arrows when its probably already in the code

Ashkental @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:46PM

That's just why i love joystiq...
I LOLed so much @ this post....

Can't... stop... pressing... f5... every... 2 secs.... must... se... news... sleep... is... for... sissies...

Korova Pamplona @ Aug 3rd 2008 9:54PM

Butter ...

Ahhh!

... scorch! Ahhhh!

*too late

Donald @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:20PM

Punctuation will increase?!?!!?!???!?!? Lies~!!!!!!!1!111!!!11one!!!!

Orionsaint @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:56PM

Japan's top selling games for the week

1. perv sim game
2. perv sim game
3. cute fluffy pink game
4. RPG
5. perv sim game
6. mario
7. bus simulator
8. perv sim game
9. RPG
10. perv sim game

Dovi @ Aug 4th 2008 12:01AM

That can also be used as a list of my top ten favorite games.

jimmygotsmack @ Aug 3rd 2008 10:58PM

I wounder if anyone will have any Philosophical reasons to why the world is doom because of console X.

mr mobius @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:19PM

It's about time the Virtual Boy got the recognition it deserves.

Maverick Saturn @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:42PM

Where? Who? When?

Paviel @ Aug 4th 2008 2:41AM

I think it did. :)

F1 & The Sword named Caladbolg @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:40PM

Well its nice to see the 360 going up again though I have to admit because of the unity of Japan to keep it's own businesses out of the tank I doubt that the 360 will get as close to or over the PS3 sales as it did with Ace Combat. At least for a couple more years, though even that's optimistic as another system will surely arrive by then.

Ok I'm done.

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Aug 4th 2008 7:52AM

As soon as 360 starts getting releases like the top three consoles in Japan, you'll see the sales rise. But for now, aside from a few exceptions, the library looks almost 100% identical to their US library. The Japanese don't want a console leading the summer months with Battlefield: Bad Company. And this is the exact same mistake PS3 is making.

Vcize @ Aug 4th 2008 10:20AM

Well, how much of it is them making a "mistake" and how much is it just their business strategy to not put that much extra money into it? When even the Wii, who does "do it right" by Japan only sells 10% as many consoles in the region as they do in the states, how much extra money should they be putting in for such a small market comparatively?

Now, I'm not versed in economics or videogames business, so maybe it goes a lot deeper than that.

josh @ Aug 4th 2008 6:30PM

"When even the Wii, who does "do it right" by Japan only sells 10% as many consoles in the region as they do in the states, how much extra money should they be putting in for such a small market comparatively?"

Huh? Where did you get the 10% number? its more like 50%... Nintendo has sold 30 million Wiis: 6.53M Japan, 13.30M America, 10.40M Others (according to VGchartz.com).

For DS sales, the numbers are closer: 23.22M Japan, 24.62M America, 29.67M Others

Maverick Saturn @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:42PM

Wait, is this before or after the bomb that was phantasy star portable 2? I'm assuming it was before :S

The way people make it sound is as if it will be the tidal wave of games :O

Sorry 360, you just don't have enough games where you rape anime girls, its not your fault :)

BPM [MSN: BPMdotEXE @ hotmail.com] @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:43PM

"...and one actual attempt on our lives."

And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling police!

Superstar90 @ Aug 3rd 2008 11:58PM

Hai Joystiq, My Accy Wuz Scammd. Cud U Giv Meh Sum Free Furniz? KThxBai.

Violence @ Aug 4th 2008 12:39AM

Just another fact on how awful the ps3 is. I mean cmon...how many times can you play mgs4 through before you realize wait...this is the only playable game for this system...Ohhhhh boy home is coming and we can play shitty bowling and pool with asshole strangers. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! BORING!!!!
but on a serious note i did like ps2.