Japan sales 01/02-01/08
1. NDS Brain Training 2 290,000 (705,000)
2. NDS Animal Crossing DS 133,000 (1,515,000)
3. NDS Mario Kart DS 115,000 (951,000)
4. NDS Brain Training 114,000 (1,272,000)
5. NDS Mario & Luigi 2 98,000 (231,000)
6. PS2 Kingdom Hearts 2 83,000 (968,000)
7. NDS Gentle Brain Training 63,000 (998,000)
8. NDS Tamagotchi 62,000 (846,000)
9. NDS Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Blue 57,000 (630,000)
10. GBA Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Red 49,000 (607,000)
Famitsu Reports on Japanese Sales For 2005
Animal Crossing takes top honors for the year.
by IGN Staff
January 11, 2006 - The latest Famitsu contains a recap of the year that was 2005 in Japan. If you've been keeping up with the Japanese game scene, you'll probably have guessed that 2005 was big for the DS and a few major PS2 titles, and the Famitsu data supports this.
The biggest game of the year, according the tracking service provided by Famitsu's parent company Enterbrain, was the DS installment of Animal Crossing, which sold 1,169,757 units. Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2 placed second with 1,066,749 units sold. Nintendo took the next two slots, with Train Your Brain for the DS selling 1,011,341 units and Nintendogs, also for the DS, pushing 965,665 units across its three versions.
The rest of the top ten continues the mix of DS and PS2. At number 5 is Winning Eleven 9 (PS2, 923,288 units), followed by Dynasty Warriors 5 (PS2, 917,985 units), Brain Flex (DS, 875,371 units), Tamagochi (DS, 770,391 units), Kingdom Hearts II (PS2, 737,652 units) and Mario Kart DS (DS, 669,575 units).
Other platforms may not be represented in the top 10, but did make the top 100. The top Game Boy Advance game, Sega's Mushi King, placed 12, with 629,902 units sold. The top GameCube game, Mario Party 7, managed 31st place with 329,633 units sold. The highest placing PSP title was 2004's Hot Shots Golf Portable, which placed 40 with 268,173 sales (yes, it beat the PSP version of Winning Eleven 9, which placed 59). Xbox 360 didn't make the top 100, as the lowest selling title, Bandai's Saint Seiya: Chapter Sanctuary for the PS2, sold 127,509 units.
A few long lasting titles made the top 100. The Famicom Mini version of Super Mario Brothers took 20th place, with 457,558 units sold, giving it a total of 1,034,264 units. Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green for Game Boy Advance placed 58 with 202,800 unit sales, bringing their total since their 1/29/2004 release up to 2,580,513 units. The duo was bested by Pokemon Emerald, which placed 32nd with 319,837 units sold for a total of 1,654,858 since 9/16/2004. Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2 sold 307,572 units in 2005, good enough for 34th place. DQVIII has sold a total of 3,538,860 units since release on 11/27/2004.
The data used for these sales figures doesn't exactly correspond to the entire 2005. The data spans 12/27/2004 to 12/25/2005. This is why Gran Turismo 4, which was released on 12/28/2004 has its full sales total on the chart. Meanwhile, the numbers for games like Animal Crossing and Brain Trainer are much lower than the figures Nintendo handed out last week because both games saw a big sales push leading up to New Years.
In all, 1084 titles made it out to the Japanese market in 2005, managing total sales of 55,430,000 units, down slightly from 2004's 58,510,000 units. This isn't too surprising, since 2004 had six games above the million mark, including one above two million and one above three. PS2 made up 651 of 2005's releases, with Game Boy Advance coming in second with 110, DS third with 107 and PSP fourth with 106. PS2 accounted for 52.5% of all software sales. DS made up 21.2%, with Game Boy Advance accounting for 12.6% and PSP 7.5%.
In terms of hardware, the DS was the undisputed champion, managing sales of 4,002,871 units. PSP took second with 2,225,799 units, followed by PS2 at 2,134,863 units. At the bottom of the barrel is the original Xbox, which managed 13,186 units, giving the system a total of 470,000 units for its entire stay on the Japanese market.
As the DS sales might have suggested, Nintendo was king as far as game companies are concerned. The Big N had 19 games in the top 100, pushing 11,030,000 pieces of software out of its Kyoto offices (this does not include Pokemon titles -- with Pokemon games, the total rises to 13,320,000 units). Bandai was second both in number of top 100 entries and total sales, with 11 titles on the list and 5.54 million units sold. Konami came in third in terms of games sold, at 5.08 million while Square Enix had the third highest number of games in the top 100, at 9 titles.
