Japan Charts: Gundam seeded No.1

The Japanese retail chart continues to stagnate year on year this week, averaging 730,000 sales for this five-week period - 240,000 units less than the five-week average for 2002, and 310,000 less than the same period in 2001.

This is in spite of 17 new titles entering the region's Top 100. Of those titles, Bandai's PS2 title Mobile Suit Gundam SEED sold 136,000 units, making it by far the most successful title this week, with Namco's GBA role-playing game Tales of Phantasia waving frantically in a distant second place with 53,000 units shipped.

There were no other outstanding titles this week, although several new releases also broke the Top 10, namely Pokîmon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire (No.4), Guilty Gear XX Reloaded (No.5), Space Invader Anniversary (No.9) and Sakura (No.10). Of those, three are successful franchises and one - Taito's Space Invaders title - is selling at a budget price tag of 1,480 yen.

Elsewhere, the PS2 version of Jikkyo Power Pro Baseball 10 proved its staying power, holding onto the No.3 spot after slipping to No.2 last week, and it's the only title not released on the 31st July/1st August to outperform last week's top title, Tokyo Xtreme Racer 01, which sold 131,000 units to reach No.1 and slips to No.6 this week.

Publisher wise, Nintendo is the best represented this week if you include their Pokîmon Company output, with three titles - Pokîmon Pinball, Super Mario Advance 4 and Kirby Air Ride. However, PS2 is the best-represented console in the Top 10, with no less than six titles to the Cube's one.

Meanwhile, the Game Boy Advance and its younger sibling the GBA SP continue to terrorise the hardware figures, picking up 11.27 and 35.13 per cent of sales respectively, giving the platform a monstrous 46.4 per cent of hardware sales. Although technically the best individual performer, the PS2 is really its nearest contender and actually down on last week with 38.6 per cent, and GameCube is lingering miles behind with just 12.25 per cent - down on last week, despite Satoru Iwata's big news conference.

To end on our traditional Xbox footnote, Microsoft's spin department will be pleased to hear that the big black box has overcome its three closest competitors this week - the PSone (0.87 per cent), the WonderSwan Crystal (0.65 per cent) and the WonderSwan Colour (0.23 per cent), and crept over the one per cent marker.

Data courtesy of Media Create Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
The Copying or Reproduction of this Document is Strictly Forbidden.
Visit Media Create for more information.