April 28th, 2005 (1:04pm) - The previous Media Create software and hardware sales charts showed a significan decrease in both hardware and software sales, however, this latest chart shows that sales have risen an all fronts thanks to a bundle of new releases. The real winner this week is Nintendo, as the release of Nintendogs and Naruto 3 really helped Nintendo DS hardware shoot up, and thanks to the GameCube’s Fire Emblem, which made a very strong debut for a GameCube title.
In similar news, Nintendogs is the fifth game in history to receive a 40 out of 40 score from Japan’s Famitsu Magazine. The only other games in the past to receive this score had been The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Vagrant Story, and the original Soul Calibur. Nintendo is counting on Nintendogs to be a monstrous success.
Top 10 Japanese game titles for the week of Apr. 18 - Apr. 24, 2005:
Game Title, (Platform, Publisher) - Units Sold During the Week (Approx.) - Total Sales (Approx.)
1. Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song (PS2, Square Enix) - 217,000 - new
2. Fire Emblem: Souen no Kiseki (GCN, Nintendo) - 102,000 - new
3. Naruto 3 (NDS, Tomy) - 84,000 - new
4. Nintendogs: Shiba and Friends (NDS, Nintendo) - 83,000 - new
5. Nintendogs: Dachs and Friends (NDS, Nintendo) - 53,000 - new
6. Nintendogs: Chihuahua and Friends (NDS, Nintendo) - 46,000 - new
7. Baseball L!ve (PS2, Namco) - 44,000 - new
8. Rockman Zero 4 (GBA, Capcom) - 38,000 - new
9. Gundam: One Year War (PS2, Bandai) - 30,000 - 234,000
10. Shutokoe Battle (PSP, Genki) - 29,000 - new
Hardware sales for the week of Apr. 18 - Apr. 24, 2005:
System - Sales this week
1. Nintendo DS - 96,191
2. PlayStation 2 - 33,080
3. PlayStation Portable - 33,004
4. Game Boy Advance SP - 10,820
5. GameCube - 8,329
6. Game Boy Advance - 422
7. Xbox - 112
Note: The number of annual total sales are the total from December 30, 2004
