Sales Chart JPN: Mario claimed first place.

Weeking ending 15 April 2007

It's not an unexpected news, Super Paper Mario has claimed the top honour this week for the Wii in Japan, shipping 144,192 units. Given the success of the Wii and the Mario name, it's only natural that we see a Mario game on the top spot. New Super Mario on the DS is still selling strong (this week at number 14), so it is very likely that the Super Paper Mario will follow the same trend.

Last week's ichiban, Gyakuten Saiban 4, has fallen to 6th, but it's still the best non-new release game of the week. In fact, the top 5 has all been taken by new release games. Second on the chart is the new Fate / Stay Night [Realta / Nua] game on the PS2 (134,887 units sold). I've never played nor watched Fate / Stay Night, but I can guess that it's popular in Japan.

Third place belongs to Persona 3 (90,369 sold), another PS2 game. No wonder the PS2 is still selling strong in Japan. For the second week running, the PS2 has outsold the PS3 (more later).

Fourth is DS's new game, Nodame Cantabile (50,785 units sold). What it is about? I have no idea.

The fifth and last of the top 5 new entries is PSP's, wait for it..... Final Fantasy. Yep, the original Final Fantasy has appeared on the PSP. I am actually kind of surprised that it isn't any higher. And it only managed 48,559 units.

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

Wii - Super Paper Mario
PS2 - Fate / Stay Night [Realta / Nua]
DS - Nodame Cantabile
PSP - Final Fantasy

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

DS - 34
PS2 - 8
PSP - 4
Wii - 4

Console War VII: Battle for Nippon

Nintendo is now firmly destroying Sony and Microsoft. Actually, the XBox was never really a force to be reckon with in Japan anyway, so we'll ignore that. For every1 PSP sold, almost 6 DS Lite did the same, and for every 1 PS3 sold, more than 7 Wii found a new home. And for good measures, Wii is outselling XBox 360 33.8 to 1.

For the second week running, the PS3 is being outsold by the PS2. It's probably due to the 2 new games on the top 5 chart, but still, if PS2 continues to have top selling games, it's good and bad news for Sony. Good because it sells more PS2, bad because the PS3 suffers from must have games.

DSL - 172,359
Wii - 77,913
PSP - 29,459
PS2 - 11,398
PS3 - 11,000
Xbox360 - 2,307

Source: Media Create

Nintendo is making money... a shitload of it.

Nintendo has reported a jump of 77% in its net profit for the Japanese fiscal year ending 31 March 2007 due to well, you guess it, the unexpected success of Wii and the continuious demand for the DS.

Unlike Microsoft and Sony, the Wii is actually a cash cow for Nintendo. They actually make money, as opposed to Microsoft's and Sony's approach of "loss money on console, but make money on software". The current mode for Nintendo is "make money on console, and make more money on software".

We can hardly blame them. The DS has sold 24 million units worldwide last year. Hell, even my household has 2 DSes. Since launch, Nintendo has sold close to 6 million Wii. The weaker Japanese Yen also helped to boost their foreign currency earnings.

The company forecasts to sell 22 million DS and 14 million Wii this fiscal year. If they can keep up the current trend, they might even sell more.

Net profit for 2006-7 fiscal year is 174.29 billion yen, revenue rose to 966.53 billon yen. That's like... a shitload of money. And if you're got shares in Nintendo JP, you will get a dividend of 690 yen per share. Nintendo JP closed at 37,800 yen on Friday.

Source: Forbes

Microsoft only sold 500,000 XBox 360 during Q1.

Microsoft has reported that they have sold 500K XBox 360 for the quarter ending 31 March. That's a huge drop from 1.7 million that they sold the quarter before. But of course, PS3 and the Wii weren't around last year. It's obvious that the newcomers are getting into Microsoft's share of the gaming industry.

Microsoft reported a loss $315 million, down from $402 million a year earlier. That loss also includes the cost associated with the launch of the Zune player (the so-call iPod killer, yeah right, iPod killer my ass).

The Wii seems to make the biggest dent, with over 5 million unit already sold since the November launch, while the XBox 360 sold over 10 million and the PS3 lacking behind with just over a million.

The real test will be the holiday season, probably around Christmas. By then, the hype should be over, so to speak, and people will come to their senses and release that the PS3 is an expensive piece of junk, XBox 360 is an even more expensive piece of junk if you add all the features comparable to the PS3 (notable buying a HDD and a HD-DVD player add-on), and the Wii is too popular for its own good, because you'll never be able to find one over Christmas.

It seems like Microsoft will have to cut prices of their gaming console to compete with Wii and PS3 (mainly the Wii, since PS3 is the most expensive of them all). That said, it will only increase the loss as Microsoft is still selling the XBox 360 at a loss.

Source: Gamasutra

Creator of Xenogear now in Nintendo's family.

Monolith Soft, the creator of the Xeno series (including Xenogears and the three Xenosaga games) is now part of the Nintendo family.

Bandai Namco (maker of endless Gundam games, including Gundam Musou), which owned 96% stake in the company, sold 80% to Nintendo. Bandai Namco will retain the remaining 16% stake and will continue to use the studio for planning and development.

So are we going to see more Xenosaga on the Wii or the DS? I bloody hope so. The Xenosaga series was great fun, though some people might disagree. Xenosaga I & II is already out on the DS (though there is no English version thus far).

Disaster: Day of Crisis, which is developed by Monolith Soft, is coming out on the Wii.

Source: Gamasutra

Sony's Ken Kutaragi "graduated" from SCE

Ken Kutaragi, the father of PlayStation, is retiring from Sony Computer Entertainment and becoming the 'honourary chairman', whatever that means. But whatever it is, he will have more time to think over just what the hell went wrong with the PS3.

"I am happy to graduate from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. after introducing four platforms to the PlayStation family," said Kutaragi. "It has been an exciting experience to change the world of computer entertainment by marrying cutting edge technologies with creative minds from all over the world. I'm looking forward to building on this vision in my next endeavors."

Just curious, but what IS your next endeavor? Going over to Nintendo, perhaps?

So the four platforms are PSX, PS2, PSP and PS3. Out of the four, only two are truly the king of the world. Ironically, PSP and PS3 both failing to capture people's heart (and money), falling behind Nintendo's less powerful DS and Wii (and the XBox 360 as well). It just goes to show, best graphics and beastly processing power is nothing when you don't have the software to support it (that and a good marketing campaign).

Kazuo Hirai, currently SCE President and Group COO, will be taking up Kutaragi's place.

Source: 1UP

Play-Asia Weekly Special: Blue Dragon US$19.90

This week's special at Play-Asia is XBox 360's Blue Dragon. It's a Japanese RPG game. Featuring the character design of Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball Z and music by Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy, Blue Dragon is an epic role-playing game that centers on a young boy named Shu and several of his friends.

If you like Dragon Ball and Final Fantasy, it is your best chance to get a game featuring the best of both worlds.

Sales Chart JPN: The Lawyers did it!

Weeking ending 15 April 2007

Last week, when Capcom announced the Phoenix Wright 3 remake on the DS, they probably are fully aware that the lawyers are doing a great run at the cash register. Well, we all know lawyers charge an arm and a leg for their service, but that still doesn't stop 250K+ gamers to become lawyers.

Over 250K gamers became lawyers last week as Gyakuten Saiban 4 (I would call it Phoenix Wright 4, but that's not strictly correct) shot straight to the top of the law school sales chart. That's a quarter of a million copies in one week. If only Housuke Odoroki speaks English. I would have got one too. Now I'll have to wait for his English teacher to teach him English first. Looks like the courtroom drama will continue for some time to come.

I'm not sure if Housuke has called up Phoenix again or not, but Phoenix Wright 1 and Phoenix Wright 2 is making a come back into the Top 50 again, at 41st and 39th respectively.

Even the forever popular plumber cannot topple the lawyer. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 comes second, with a respectable 92K sold, still very far behind the Gyakuten Saiban 4. Wii Sports is back up there again, along with Yoshi . I was a little surprised with Professor Layton, still making the run in 6th place.

So everything is back to normal again, with Nintendo dominating the top 7 spots. The top 2 games that are not on the Wii or DS are the PS2 'old' games, Musou Orochi and Pro Baseball Spirit 4.

PS3 still hanging on with Pro Baseball Spirits 4, while the PSP is much the same with Monster Hunter Freedom 2nd.

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

DS - Gyakuten Saiban 4
PSP - Monster Hunter Freedom 2nd
Wii - Wii Sports
PS2 - Musou Orochi
PS3 - Pro Baseball Spirits 4

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

DS - 36
PS2 - 7
Wii - 3
PSP - 3
PS3 - 1

Console War VII: Battle for Nippon

Maybe it's because of the power of justics, the DS sold 20K more last week.Wii is back up there again. While the PS3, well, it's not so well again this week. It fell behind the PS2 for I-don't-know-how-many-times this year. PSP has dropped over the week as well. For each PSP sold last week, more than 5 DS were sold during the same period. Overall, Nintendo is up everywhere while everything else around them crumbles.

DSL - 133,325
Wii - 75,759
PSP - 24,850
PS2 - 12,872
PS3 - 11,948
Xbox360 - 2,900

Source: Media Create