Japanese charts: Afrika riding high

By Robert Purchese Published 4 September, 2008

Safari so good for PS3 animal-photo game.

Afrika almost became king of the Japanese chart-jungle this week, but was beaten to the throne by quirky DS music game Rhythm Tengoku Gold (Rhythm Heaven here).

Quite soundly beaten, actually, excusing the pun; Rhythm Tengoku Gold had 76,000 sales to 38,000 of Afrika, according to Media Create data translated by NeoGAF members.

Ellie, incidentally, is embarking on her imported Afrika adventure as we speak. Remember: the game will only be released in Japan; such is the circle of life.

Rather close to the wilderness adventure was J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship (a Pro Evolution Soccer release) on PS2, which also had 38,000 sales.

Following was PSP game Fate/Tiger Colosseum Upper by Capcom at four, Wii Fit at five, and DS RPG Inazuma Eleven at six.

Freshly-released Battlefield: Bad Company on PS3 surprisingly took seven, Dragon Quest V for DS was at eight, Phantasy Star Portable for PSP held nine and Mario Kart Wii rounded the table off at 10.

Too Human made a little splash, entering the charts 17.

The hardware chart is unsurprisingly dominated by DS with 58,000 units sold, according to Famitsu figures, followed by handheld rival PSP selling 43,000 units.

The Wii had the best of the console battle but posted depleted numbers of 24,000 units, which made the PS3 with 11,000 units none too far away.

PS2 kept up steady but declining sales of 9100 units, while Xbox 360 shifted just 3100 units.

Software

  1. Rhythm Tengoku Gold (DS) - 76,000 (lifetime: 612,000)
  2. Afrika (PS3) - 38,000 (new entry)
  3. J-League Winning Eleven 2008 Club Championship (PS2) - 38,000 (lifetime: 117,000)
  4. Fate/Tiger Colosseum Upper (PSP) - 34,000 (new entry)
  5. Wii Fit (Wii) - 31,000 (lifetime: 2,578,000)
  6. Inazuma Eleven (DS) - 29,000 (lifetime: 71,000)
  7. Battlefield: Bad Company (PS3) - 26,000 (new entry)
  8. Dragon Quest V (DS) - 23,000 (lifetime: 1,148,000)
  9. Phantasy Star Portable (PSP) - 23,000 (lifetime: 618,000)
  10. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 23,000 (lifetime: 1,734,000)

Hardware

  1. DS - 58,000
  2. PSP - 43,000
  3. Wii - 24,000
  4. PS3 - 11,000
  5. PS2 - 9100
  6. 360 - 3100
Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • galerian86 #1 3 years ago

    Wonder if Afrika is good or not? From the trailers that I watched, it seems like the Wii game, Endless Ocean or something like that.
    Edited by 1 at 04/09/08 @ 17:17

  • Olemak #2 3 years ago

    The most startling news is that Ellie finally gets to review a game that just might be good!

  • Vice.Destroyer #3 3 years ago

    I think even more startling than that is the number of Wii Fits that have been sold. 2 million+? Insanity.

  • Totoriko #4 3 years ago

    Are there black people in the game? If there are, it's racist!

  • GrandTheftApu #5 3 years ago

    The most startling news is that Ellie finally gets to review a game that just might be good!
    Depends if she's busy, she may have to go and meet here mum in which case the game must be shit ;)

  • drumbaby #6 3 years ago

    Or it may be good, but we won't understand that, because of an esoteric mess of a review.

  • #7 3 years ago

    Ellie? After her unbelievably bad review of pixel junk Eden i wouldn't give her the time of day. Not that Eden was good or great, the way she started the review was fucking awful.

    She`ll start Afrika with " I have a love hate relationship with animals...." blah blah blah...no real information about the game, lots on how bad i am at it... 7/10

  • Farfarer #8 3 years ago

    Safari so good? Even I winced at that one :p

  • OfficialBlue #9 3 years ago

    Wow I guess the 360 is dead after all!

  • illusiondance #10 3 years ago

    eh? im not sure why this got an article in Urogamer.
    Is it because its a shock hit for a non traditional game or because of another less opaque reason? (sony luvin?)

    Surely the headline should have been related to the success of the more popular nintendo title?
    anyway, too late now...

    and stop whinging about reviewers you lot at the back! could be worse, could be the Kikizo's Haze review.... heh heh, legendary

  • CunningLinguist #11 3 years ago

    Ellie's still getting flack, hilarious!

  • captainrentboy #12 3 years ago

    Evilfoxhound, I'm not sure if masturbating over Lions and Rhinos in the wild is that much better to be honest :/
    Edited by 1 at 04/09/08 @ 20:37

  • Olemak #13 3 years ago

    eh? im not sure why this got an article in Urogamer.
    Is it because its a shock hit for a non traditional game or because of another less opaque reason? (sony luvin?)

    Dude, they are doing the japanese charts every week. The most noteworthy thing about it is that a PS3 exclusive made it to number 2, which is statisically improbable due to the relatively low saturation of PS3's in Japan. Also, Africa is a game a few people in the occident are rather interested in; I hope it will do very well in Japan and be launched in Europe too as a result of it. Seems like a very family friendly game, we need more of those.

  • giant_frying_pan #14 3 years ago

    The hardware numbers you pinched from NeoGAF (or whichever blog did the pinching) are Famitsu numbers and not the final Media Create figures. You should aim to use one source or the other and not mix and match.

  • Razz #15 3 years ago

    Why on Earth is Africa spelt with a "k"? o_O Are hte people callen Afrikans in the game for some legal issue? Wierd.

  • Razz #16 3 years ago

    Hang on I just found out that most Africans spell it with a K. Learn soomething new everyday.

  • Aretak #17 3 years ago

    Just like Corea, Razz. ;-)

  • Widge #18 3 years ago

    I'd like to get it for my Gem (if it was in English), I could see her happily bumbling around Africa learning about animals. A bit more fun than just sitting through Wikipedia.

  • DrDamn #19 3 years ago

    @Farticus
    It does look nice - would be interested in it myself - but can see from gameplay vids why they think it might not appeal to western gamers. Then again the PS3 could do with more exclusive good looking content. I'll be looking to import if they do an English language Asian version.

  • Oh-Bollox #20 3 years ago

    Never understood that attitude. Do European game studios do that?

    "Oh, the Japanese will never understand our title, we won't even bother releasing it over there."