Blue Dragon Outsells Zelda in Japan At Launch

Computer and Videogames is carrying the news that the 360's new JRPG Blue Dragon has outsold Zelda (and all other Wii software) since the game launched last month. This can mean only good things for Microsoft, as by all account the Wii's software lineup didn't do too shabby a job of selling either. From the article: "The latest Media Create Japanese chart puts the Mistwalker RPG at number four in the top selling titles in Japan for December 4 through 10, which has managed to shift a respectable 80,000 copies in the country giving it the number two all-time 360 sales record behind Dead or Alive 4. Blue Dragon has received a considerable level of hype in Japan, largely thanks to the fanbase surrounding Dragon Ball Z artist Akira Toriyama who designed the characters in the game, and a special edition Japanese Blue Dragon 360 bundle which some Japanese retailers reported to have sold out of within minutes of opening pre-order." Update: 12/15 01:10 GMT by Z : As Chris Kohler points out, the game outsold Zelda the week of its launch.

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Re:HDTV adoption growth rates there or here

[WillAffleckUW]

Four games does not a console make.

The "buzz" is that several 360 games will be nominees for sure: Oblivion and Gears of War. I would argue that Dead Rising and Viva Pinata also deserve to be high marks in their respective genres.

Hmmm. Gears of War is 5 out of 5, Dead Rising is maybe 4, Viva Pinata is a definite 4, but there are many other games that are barely a 2 or 3, and quite frankly, that's not very good.

So far, when you actually look at the Wii and PS3 and xBox360 titles available in the US, it looks like the Wii has a stable of 4 and 5 rated games, the xBox360 is middle of the road (with barely as many total 4 and 5 games as the just-released Wii), and the PS3 is well, just not up to it, with only one decent game to speak of, and a lot of really glitchy but nice-looking games to round it out.

Maybe it's different in Japan - I've heard the xBox360 released a number of cool Japan-only Samurai games, but haven't heard of any cool PS3 ones yet in Japan, and it's still early for any Wii games (launch was just a short while back).