Sales Chart JPN: Mario takes Wii back to the top.

Week 29 October - 04 November 2007

After many weeks of substantial absence on the top of the chart, the Nintendo Wii has finally got its charm back this week, with none other than its famous plumber, Mario. Mario Galaxy blasted its way out of this earth and into the next with over a quarter of a million sold (250,585). No doubt the game will stay for a long while on the charts, hovering about in top 10. Is this the hit Nintendo is looking for to revive the somewhat sluggish sales of the Wii in recent week? Only time will tell.

The closest competition only sold 76,708. Yet another flying machine. This one is of the mechanical type. Bandai-Namco's popular Ace Combat is flying the flag for the company at 2nd with Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation. Funny thing is that the game is on the Xbox 360. And this week, there are not one, not two, but three Xbox 360 new comer on the chart!!! Besides Ace Combat, The Idolm@ster came in at 21st and Earth Defense Forces 3 came in at 29th. This is probably the best week for Xbox for a very long time in Japan.

Third is last week's number 1, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (50,514). FF is losing steam on this one, me thinks. Not many new comers in the top 10 this week, with Super Robot Wars Scramble Commander the 2nd the third and last new comer this week at 4th (20,525). Quite a mix this week with 4 different system featured on the top 4. But guess what? No PS3 or PSP games. The best PSP game is still Gundam Battle Chronicle, and the PS3 Hot Shot Golf 5. Last week's PS3 entry, Imabikisou, which was 4th, has got lost and can't find its way back to the charts. Wii Sports found its way back to top 10.

Best selling games for each platform (that is on the chart) this week

Wii - Mario Galaxy
XB360 - Ace Combat 6
PS2 - Super Robot Wars Scramble Commander the 2nd
DS - Final Fantasy Tactics A2
PSP - Gundam Battle Chronicle
PS3 - Hot Shot Golf 5

Number of titles in the top 50 for each platform this week:

DS - 25
PS2 - 8
Wii - 7
PSP - 5
360 - 3
PS3 - 2

Console War VII: Battle for Nippon

Ladies and gentlemen, this week you have witnessed history in the making (sort of). The Xbox 360 outsold PS3 in a country where it traditionally does shit. I don't think most of the number comes from Ace Combat, but certainly a large number of it is contributed by Idolm@ster. I won't be surprised in that was the case, given the Japanese idol culture. Not even during the week of Halo 3 did Xbox archived these kind of amazing numbers for Microsoft.

Elsewhere, DS and PSP is roughly the same while Wii has bounced back from the 20K-ish per week, at least for now. Interesting to see the numbers in the following weeks.

DSL - 78,552
PSP - 59,714
Wii - 37,617
Xbox360 - 17,673
PS3 - 17,434

Market share this week

DSL vs PSP
56.81% vs 43.19%

Wii vs PS3 vs XBox 360
51.73% vs 23.97% vs 24.30%

Source: Media Create