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Japanese Videogame Stats Illuminate, Confusticate

Posted by simoniker on from the so-many-numbers dept.

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.

9 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Grand Theft Auto by dammitallgoodnamesgo · · Score: 4, Informative

    A "rare western game popular in Japan"? It's British, the Japanese have never been afraid to buy British games. It's American games they've always been wary of. Plus, being published by Capcom can hardly have hurt (Then again Arx Fatalis was published by Capcom in Japan, and seems to have gone to the bargain bins fairly quickly)

    1. Re:Grand Theft Auto by ag0ny · · Score: 4, Informative

      Arx Fatalis has not been translated into Japanese. That's quite a problem for a game that requires a lot of interaction with NPCs (lots of talking and reading).

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    2. Re:Grand Theft Auto by dammitallgoodnamesgo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oh yes it has

  2. *Evil grin* by Mmm+coffee · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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")
    =)
    1. Re:*Evil grin* by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Couldn't resist the grin myself either, especially since the top 5 states even the old gameboy advance sells more units than the XBox!

      Realisticly though, western products rarely sell well in the far east. Xbox sells quite reasonably in the west, it has gained some reasonable marketshare though apparently not enough to gain a profit.

      I'll be laughing my ass off when MS releases their stripped-PowerMac-with-a-crappy-OS and pits it against Sony's revolutionary Cell-based design, though! :D

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  3. Japan isn't the only market out there by kevinatilusa · · Score: 4, Informative

    January through November 2003 U.S. Sales:

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

    Seems like a significant player to me

    (This is according to http://www.vgpro.com/news/4121 ; I'd welcome a second source)

    1. Re:Japan isn't the only market out there by BigDork1001 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Two generations? Where are you getting that from? Two generations ago was the SNES.

      --
      "Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
    2. Re:Japan isn't the only market out there by king-manic · · Score: 2, Funny

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

      Maybe he means chip fab generations? maybe fruit fly generations? in that case it's 36 generatiosn behind.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  4. strange omission by MORTAR_COMBAT! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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")

    The submitter's hardware list doesn't list the GBA SP which sold 1,295,460 units in the described time frame, and the GBA which sold 158,516, yet it does list a GBA game, Pokemon. Thus, the total GBA system sales were almost 90,000 units more than the PS2.

    What's even more interesting to me is that only the GBA SP and the GameCube sold more units in Q1/Q2 of 2004 than they did on Q3/Q4 of 2003.

    Oh yeah, that, and that the XBox did not have a single software title in the Top 100. PS2 had 50, GBA had 38, and the GameCube had 12.

    And one last bit: Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire sold its 5 millionth unit during the period.

    --
    MORTAR COMBAT!