Japanese Videogame Stats Illuminate, Confusticate

Thanks to Game Science for its article analyzing Japanese videogame hardware and software sales for the first half of 2004. Of particular interest are the hardware sales for consoles ("PlayStation 2 - 1,365,260... Nintendo Gamecube - 340,204... Xbox - 18,239"), million-selling games ("Pokemon Fire Red & Leaf Green - 2,136,737... Dragon Quest V - 1,572,497... Sengoku Musou - 1,002,312"), a rare Western game popular in Japan ("Grand Theft Auto Vice City - 367,302"), a list of the publishers with the most games in the Top 100 ("Nintendo - 28...Bandai - 9... Konami - 8"), and the note that "The [videogame] market has increased 7.7% on the same period last year", meaning previous depressed forecasts for the Japanese games industry might not be entirely correct.

Comments

*Evil grin*

[Mmm coffee]

An anonymous reader writes "According to GameSpot, a Q&A with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has him saying that, although the company's Xbox game console isn't making money (or bleeding them dry), the pain has been worth it. 'We have gone from nowhere to a significant player,' he said, adding: 'I am betting we can take Sony in the next generation.

Four hours later...

Thanks to Game Science for its article analyzing Japanese videogame hardware and software sales for the first half of 2004. Of particular interest are the hardware sales for consoles ("PlayStation 2 - 1,365,260... Nintendo Gamecube - 340,204... Xbox - 18,239")

=)

Re:Japan isn't the only market out there

[clambake]

PS2: 4.41 million
Gamecube: 2.12 million
Xbox: 2.03 million

Seems like a significant player to me

Sure, until you remember that the PS2 is TWO generations behind the xbox and gamecube and still sells better than both combined.

Re:Japan isn't the only market out there

[BigDork1001]

Two generations? Where are you getting that from? Two generations ago was the SNES.