Latest installment in Konami's Winning Eleven series dominates a sales chart crammed with older releases.
While recent years have seen the Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer series fall behind EA's competing FIFA franchise in terms of critical acclaim, Konami's footie sim remains a commercial powerhouse. The latest evidence of that comes from Media Create's Japanese sales charts for the week of November 2-8, which were dominated by the PlayStation 3 version of World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 (Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 internationally).
Winning Eleven 2010 racked up sales of 217,848, the best first-week Japanese sales for a game since Nintendo's Wii Fit Plus racked up nearly 340,000 copies sold for the first week of October. Speaking of Nintendo's latest Balance Board-compatible title, it has proven to have a considerable amount of sales stamina, selling 69,797 copies for the week ended November 8. It wasn't the only long-term resident on the week's Japanese sales charts, as the second through seventh spots were all occupied by previous weeks' and months' releases.
September release Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver was the week's runner-up with 73,554 sold, while Tomodachi Collection--a regular on the charts since June--came in fourth with 63,571 sold. Meanwhile, Inazuma Eleven 2 celebrated its first full month on the charts in sixth place, while Persona 3 for the PSP (fifth place), Final Fantasy Gaiden on the DS (seventh place), and the PS3 edition of Bayonetta (eighth place) all marked their second week on the charts.
The only new releases in the top 10 besides Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 were ninth-place DS role-playing game Summon Night X: Tears Crown from Namco Bandai and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games bringing up the rear. Under the agreement between Sega and Nintendo, the Sonic publisher released the game internationally, while the Mario factory handled the Japanese launch.
As for hardware, the charts were shaken up a bit. Sony's PS3 topped all consoles and handhelds with 48,925 sold, relegating former champ the DSi to second place with 37,421. Sony's PSP held its ground with 33,784 sold, but PSP Go sales dropped more than 50 percent week-over-week, selling just 13,992 units. Meanwhile, Nintendo put another 31,810 Wii systems in Japanese households, while Microsoft's Xbox 360 limped along with another 4,679 added to the console's installed base.
JAPAN GAME SALES WEEK OF NOVEMBER 2-8, 2009
Software:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Platform / Unit sales
1) Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 / Konami / PS3 / 217,848
2) Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver / Nintendo / DS / 73,554
3) Wii Fit Plus / Nintendo / Wii / 69,797
4) Tomodachi Collection / Nintendo / DS / 63,571
5) Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable / Atlus / PSP / 46,459
6) Inazuma Eleven 2: Kyoui no Shinryokusha - Fire and Blizzard / Level 5 / DS / 42,186
7) Four Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden / Square Enix / DS / 35,195
8) Bayonetta / Sega / PS3 / 29,361
9) Summon Night X: Tears Crown / Namco Bandai / DS / 24,451
10) Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games / Nintendo / Wii / 21,541
Hardware:
PS3 - 48,925
DSi - 37,421
PSP - 33,784
Wii - 31,810
PSP Go - 13,992
DS Lite - 5,515
Xbox 360 - 4,679
PS2 - 2,066
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
@Shii666-I will believe that when the PS3 maintains a dominance of 3 to 1 and sometimes 5 to 1 sales figures for the next 4 years straight like the Wii has done too the PS3 in Japan for the last 4 years. Of course, also that to even be recognized by the Japanese market, it had to cut it's price in half, which means the PS3 also never had the worth that Sony assigned too it.
ya but wiis overall us sales, added to japans wii sales are more then ps3 us/japan sales lol
the console pes is defintie has improve engine, the gameplay especially the master league borrow many thing from fifa, but still lack of license.
As sad as i am to say, even though i'm a Sony fanboy, the PSP Go is a BIG disappointment for me. It did not include enough features to give owners of already owned PSP's a reason to buy it. The new features isn't even worth the price tag. I think it would be a lot more wise to upgrade/add hardware for it. Like another ANALOG STICK for example...i mean....is it really that difficult to do that? Again, it's Sony's console, what could i say to change what has gone wrong? Anyways, i'm glad i didn't buy it. Now a happy owner of a PSP-3000 :D
Nintendo and sony will continue to battle it out for the rest of the generation I think! Sony on top in japan- nintendo on top in america. And every once and awhile, nintendo takes japan. This leaves microsoft suffering at the bottom of the list. Lol
It is nice to see the PS3 leading the sales figures(though there are no personal reasons as to why i find it nice!)
Wow. This just shows (along with FIFA selling fast in Europe) how much the world loves soccer more than we do in the US. That's crazy sales!
PES 2010 looks pretty good in that video. A little surprised how good some of the players look, and the action looks fast.
PS3 is actually starting to lead the sales. It's pretty amazing how it was even able to beat the handhelds. (I'm more amazed at the fact that a second generation console is still selling quite well)
Bayonetta selling quite poorly even after all the glowing reviews. Though I am a very big fan in this beat-em-up genre but still I am not interested in that game. If you ask me why well bayonetta is a girl after all and it doesn't feel right playing a girl kicking ass. I can't think of any other game heroine rather than lara croft who reached out to all the audiences.So even though bayonetta is a good game it will sell quite poorly for sure.
Amazing. Sony sold more hardware than Nintendo. If Sony focused on being a developer when they had cash with the ps2, then they would have been #1. Nintendo sold more software than Sony. Soccer is now on the rise in Japan. Japan qualified in the World Cup, so now soccer is exploding in Japan. Let's see how Call of Duty will do for Sony and Nintendo and if New Super Mario Bros. Wii is still popular in Japan. One more week for results.
PES 2010 has one of the best player faces and graphically stunning .........BUT I MUST SAY THE GOALKEEPER AI IS EXTREMELY RETARD EVEN IN THE TOP PLAYER SETTINGS.........
Not surprising. I've never been into soccer games though, but they normally have fantastic graphics. The only way it seems like Microsoft is going to sell over there is to maybe purchase Nintendo, but do it low key, then keep the name so they'll be unaware. I bet they will sell then. lol.
Nintendo and Sony got Japan on LOCKDOWN. Microsoft makes on game and it goes away after a couple days
holy poo a ps3 game at the top and a soccer game thats great and even on top of the console sells thats nutts
well it looks like the price of ps3 only jumped the sales only a minimal boost in japan and not so good in us , but its still good enough to overtake 360 in a few years w0w psp sales declined alot from last week , is this true am i seeing this , ps3 only got 17 thousand more unit then wii and psp sales declined but dsi rised , is this japan ds wii psp games on charts wheres ps3 so people buy ps3s for 2 sports games this week lol ,is that so , ,
I don't blame them for not buying xbox 360 consoles. Japanese are not into the first person shooters genre that has been dominating the xbox console. They like wacky games(I am with them on that one) and certainly xbox 360 is lacking on that kind of software. Just look at the japanese PSN store and you will see what I am talking about.
Not one handheld or console went over 50 thousand on the hardware? Is this really Japan? Also lol at PSP Go sells.
Great, if I lived in Japan this article could be interesting. Wait, if I lived in Japan I probably wouldn't be able to read this article.
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