Japan Charts: Gundam goes from strength to strength

The latest game to be based on massively popular anime franchise Mobile Suit Gundam has topped the Japanese charts this week, keeping Nintendo's Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour from the number one spot.

PS2 title Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space sold some 395,000 units in its first week on sale, beating the early sales figures for its predecessors (the original Mobile Suit Gundam sold 225,000 copies, while MSG: Federation vs Zeon DX sold 350,000) and accounting for over 40 per cent of software sales during the week.

It was trailed at number two by Nintendo's Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour on the GameCube, while another GameCube title also made a top ten debut this week - with Tomy's ZOIDS VS. II appearing at number nine in the chart.

Last week's GameCube chart-topper, Namco's RPG Tales of Symphonia, is at number five this week, while Square-Enix GBA title Sword of Mana holds in at number three - and is joined this week by another GBA title, Nintendo's Legendary Stafy 2, at number four.

The only other new entry in the top ten is Konami's The Baseball 2003: Declaration of Battle Ball Park - Fall, the autumn edition of one of the company's several popular baseball game franchises.

In hardware terms, the GameCube has slumped back a bit towards normality after last weeks massive sales boost, with a 17.81 per cent market share this week. The GBA remains quite distinctly Japan's favourite console, however, with almost 50 per cent market share between the original GBA (8.6 per cent) and the GBA SP (41.11 per cent).

PS2 also fares well, as ever, with just a touch over 30 per cent of the market share... While the Xbox redeems itself slightly, being neck and neck with the PSone this week on 0.56 per cent - an improvement over last week, when it was beaten comprehensively by the PS2's older sibling, and looked likely to fall behind Bandai's SwanCrystal.

Data courtesy of Media Create Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
The Copying or Reproduction of this Document is Strictly Forbidden.
Visit Media Create for more information.