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Record breaking Mario Bros tops Japanese top ten

Big week for new release sees Wii hardware sales double, but DS still leads

News by David Jenkins Contributor
Published on

As expected New Super Mario Bros. Wii has become the best-selling game in Japan in the latest weekly data from Media Create, with sales put at 934,739 units.

The figure matches earlier estimates from rival research firm Enterbrain, making the game the fastest selling Wii game ever in Japan. It was a busy week in general for new releases in Japan, where the main gift-giving season runs several weeks behind that of the West.

The second best selling game of the week was Sega's online action role-player Phantasy Star Portable 2 on PSP, with an impressive 286,896 unit sold. Namco Bandai's Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam Vs. Gundam Next Plus on PSP also performed extremely well with 222,985 units sold.

The fourth highest entry of the week, at number four, was also a Wii title, with what would be known in the West as Samurai Warriors 3 selling 121,000 units for Tecmo Koei. Also new for the Wii at number seven is what translates as PokePark Wii: Pikachu's Great Adventure, with a still creditable 64,000 unit sales.

The final new entry of the week is Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed II for PlayStation 3 at number 10, with 49,000 unit sales - another unusually strong performance for a Western made title in Japan. The Xbox 360 version entered that charts at number 16.

The success of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the other new Wii titles had a significant effect on hardware sales with the Wii jumping up from 46,673 sales last week to a total of 106,555 this week.

The Nintendo DS was still the number one selling hardware format though, with combined sales of 113,793 units. This broke down to 53,791 units for the new DSi LL (aka DSi XL), 51,635 for the standard DSi and 8,367 for the older DS Lite model.

PSP sales, including 3,412 for the PSPgo, were also healthy at 71,292 units sold, with the PlayStation 3 seeing an increase of over 11,000 units to 57,782. Xbox 360 sales were up a few thousand to 5,314, while the PlayStation 2 was largely unchanged at 2,277.

The full software top ten for the week ending 6 December is:

  • 01 New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
  • 02 Phantasy Star Portable 2 (PSP)
  • 03 Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam Vs. Gundam Next Plus (PSP)
  • 04 Samurai Warriors 3 (Wii)
  • 05 Professor Layton and the Spectre's Flute (DS)
  • 06 Friend Collection (DS)
  • 07 PokePark Wii: Pikachu's Great Adventure (Wii)
  • 08 Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (DS)
  • 09 Wii Fit Plus (Wii)
  • 10 Assassin's Creed II (PS3)