Nintendo dominates Japan

By Robert Purchese Published 15 June, 2007

DS and Wii rampage up charts.

Nintendo's DS Lite and Wii have continued to stamp all over the competition in Japan.

According to the sales charts for the week ending 10th June, the pair racked up more than 79 per cent of all activity.

The DS took the gold medal with outrageous sales of 117,193, dwarfing the 24,711 figure from PSP. To date, Nintendo's dual-screen menace has trounced Sony's slender marauder by more than three to one.

The Wii, too, sustained its vice-like grip on the console market, churning out numbers to the tune of 64,529. The PS3 sulked with 8,776 and the Xbox 360 looked on in horror by bagging just 2,553.

But the cheeky PS2, which surely ought to be decomposing at the bottom of the garden by now, grabbed the attention of 11,097 people.

All the rest fell in a bucket and got eaten by a shark.

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 (31) Latest comment 5 years ago

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

  • woodnotes #1 5 years ago

    Nintendo dominates Japan, US, Europe. It really is the end of gaming. Switch off the lights when you leave.

  • souljacker2000 #2 5 years ago

    im sure its just the Japs that are buying the ps3
    Good that so many 360s sold.. v surprised

  • secombe #3 5 years ago

    The DS just never slows down does it, unbelievable numbers considering it's a pretty average mid-year week.

    Really surprised by the PS3 numbers, seem frighteningly close to 360 sales which can't be a good sign for Sony in Japan.

  • rashes #4 5 years ago

    is anyone else finding all of this really depressing..?

  • Moz #5 5 years ago

    Nothing new then. Wake me up in september when the next wave of decent games hit the shelves.

    Also still waiting to see some analysis of what percentage of Wii sales are "new" gamers.

  • Feet #6 5 years ago

    Those crazy japs eh?

  • Darren #7 5 years ago

    The Japanese apparently like short, shallow, easy games so it's no surprise that the Wii is popular with them as most of its game so far fall into one (or more) of those three categories! LOL

    Seriously, I love my Wii but it's the oeuvre d'hors compared with my "main meal" which is the PS3 and Xbox 360.

    Yum!

  • Moz #8 5 years ago

    My main problem with the Wii is it really going to go the distance?

    In 2 years time when more people have HD TV's and 360 and PS3 have no dout come down to around the £200 mark the Wii even at £100 is going to be looking very dated.

  • ZeroAX #9 5 years ago

    really this is getting quite boring. how about you post a newspost when DS ain't first and Wii second? that would actually be a suprise

  • dr_faulk #10 5 years ago

    lol @ final report sentence

  • Der_tolle_Emil #11 5 years ago

    The DS' sales in Japan are for me not really surprising. Just look at how many games are available in Japan, the numbers are incredible. Most of them won't sell too much over here I guess but with so many games there is hardly anyone in Japan not wanting some of them thus buying a DS. And more DS sold results in more games for the DS which is always a good thing.

  • Gurgeh #12 5 years ago

    US hardware sales analysis:

    [link url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story =14341
    ]http://ww w.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_in...[/link]

    Wii sales continue unabated, XBox 360 monthly sales down 47% over the last 5 months, Playstation 3 sales down 66% over the last 5 months - and even PS2 sales are down 33%.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #13 5 years ago

    As a long time gamer (who ocassionally dusts off his commodore 64 for a quick blast of Thing on a Spring) I have to admit to being totally smitten with the Wii.

    I find it to be such a nice little machine, powerful enough for my gaming needs at the moment, small enough to squeeze comfortably under my shiny HD TV, quiet enough to not have the volume turned up to Wasp levels just to hear the game and very reliable.

    I still play with my PS2, the slim version of which is just perfect, as well as my Gamecube. I also enjoy playing games on my DS and my PSP... well ok, the PSP is used for watching videos on the way to work, but thats kinda what it was made for :)

    From my point of view, I can understand why the Japanese like the current batch of Nintendo products so much. They are small, they are cute, they are priced about right and they encourage the social aspect of gaming which is so very important in Japanese society.

    And for what it is worth, with nearly 20 years of gaming behind me, standing up i my living room, waving a wand pretending to be ten pin bowling or shooting a bow and arrow is fantastic... best gaming experience I have had in a long time.

  • lambtron #14 5 years ago

    Says something about how badly the PS3 is bombing in Japan when it only sells 4 times the number of 360s.

  • Steroyd #15 5 years ago

    Says something about how badly the PS3 is bombing in Japan when it only sells 4 times the number of 360s.

    LOL

  • jonsaan #16 5 years ago

    After hours and hours of engaging gameplay, I think I have finally 'completed' Eurogamer, all the new levels seem the same now...
    Edited by 1 at 15/06/07 @ 16:09

  • secombe #17 5 years ago

    2.5k 360's sold, thats how many consoles red ringed last week....in wales!!

    Funniest thing I've read all day. The sad thing is that it's probably true ;)

  • IAmBatman #18 5 years ago

    > I really think the gamers are backlashing

    Ha ha ha ha.

  • jebus #19 5 years ago

    rashes
    15-Jun-07 15:33:11 is anyone else finding all of this really depressing..?

    No. Why should we?

  • smelly #20 5 years ago

    >is anyone else finding all of this really depressing..?

    Nope im finding it great!

    What i find depressing is the direction the games industry WAS going.. The same games over and over again just with prettier pixels.

    Frankly i was getting bored of prettier and prettier graphics - reality is boring to play anyway.

    Looks to me like im not the only one...

  • smelly #21 5 years ago

    "My main problem with the Wii is it really going to go the distance? "

    Why not? The ps2 was (is) underpowered compared to the other 2 platforms, and it's STILL the most expensive.

    If the wii continues to sell, it'll get the most games, which in turn means more people buying it, which in turn means more games, etc etc.

    Gaming geeks on forums dont seem to realise that joe public doesnt care that machine x has slightly shinnier pixels than machine y.

    I lose all amounts of faith when i see pixel-to-pixel screenshot comparisions of 360 vs ps3 shots on some websites.. i mean.. wtf.. who cares really?

  • Carrybagma #22 5 years ago

    People should save a few bob and buy Gamecubes instead - they're the same thing after all, except that the Gamecube has better games.

  • smelly #23 5 years ago

    *Sigh*.. yes they're the same thing.. keep telling yourself that - you might make it true if you say it enough times.

    (twat)

  • chupachups #24 5 years ago

    "is anyone else finding all of this really depressing..?"

    In a way it is, Nintendo is having it far too easy. They have virtually no competition as the 360 is filled with the kind of games that aren't popular in Japan and the PS3 is far too expensive.

    In the short term it's nice to see Sony's dominance challenged, but in the long term it would be bad for gaming if Nintendo simply took their place.

  • smelly #25 5 years ago

    "in the long term it would be bad for gaming if Nintendo simply took their place."

    bullshit

  • Nikanoru #26 5 years ago

    Nintendo created Gaming, Nintendo is Gaming, and all you little bitches may sit and watch, and shut your mouths. ;p


    My main problem with the Wii is it really going to go the distance?

    In 2 years time when more people have HD TV's and 360 and PS3 have no dout come down to around the £200 mark the Wii even at £100 is going to be looking very dated.

    Bladblabla yadda yadda bla same old stupid shit repeated 1000x over by everyone before you

    Face it, PC graphics have always made all consoles look extremely outdated and blocky and blurry and all that, with their high polycounts, sharp textures and insane resolutions. PC gamers have been playing in resolutions higher than HDTV's since the goddamn PS1 era, when the whole "HD" buzzword didn't even exist. And, as you well know, it has mattered precisely shit.

    And if you think it matters now, or will matter at any point in the future, then you're just not very smart.

  • ArtOfLife #27 5 years ago

    I love the DS, and although I'll admit that so far I haven't been very impressed with the games on the Wii (except Zelda, but it's primarily a GameCube game), I'm very pleased to see Nintendo back doing so well. Not so long ago I remember people saying that Pokémon and Game Boy were the only thing keeping Nintendo surviving, and that as Sony had destroyed them in terms of sales in the home console market, if a portable PlayStation ever were to be released it'd be the end of Nintendo.

    Yet look at them now! On top in both fields and showing no signs of slowing down. And what's with the ridiculously high DS sales; either people are buying replacements over and over to replace broken ones, or else every third person in Japan owns one by now.

    Or else they're all buying multiple colour versions ^_^

  • Daikon #28 5 years ago

    Famitsu had a cover story on all the new cool games coming out for the X360 in Japan. Expect Japanese 360 sales to at least double next month.

  • smelly #29 5 years ago

    >Expect Japanese 360 sales to at least double next month.

    So double figures then?

  • gelf #30 5 years ago

    I guess I would count as a 'hardcore' gamer, I certainly own enough bloody games, yet Wii and DS are the only systems that have my interest right now. (Well my PSP gets a run out occasionally, but rarely for games). Do you people really believe the only people buying them are fanboys and "non gamers", Your deluding yourselves.

    As someone who long ago got jaded by the rush for same game better graphics mentality I'm very pleased to see Nintendo on top. Really I've not even felt like I wanted better graphics since the Dreamcast. Once the early days of eye hurting jagged blurry polygon graphics where over I stopped caring. I still want a 360 and PS3 but it'll take a few price cuts yet and I'm in no rush to go get a HD set either.

  • smelly #31 5 years ago

    Sigh.. yes the wii is a gamecube.. sigh.

    You know if you keep posting that some day it might come true.