Japan Charts: Nintendo ends 2003 on a high note

The last Japanese charts of 2003 have been released, showing Nintendo clocking up major success in terms of both software and hardware sales, with Mario Party 5 the best selling game and the GBA back on top in the hardware ranking.

Another three first-party GameCube games make it into the software top six, with Donkey Konga, Pokemon Colosseum and Mario Kart: Double Dash at four, five and six respectively, while Nintendo's GBA title Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is at number seven.

Despite the fact that Mario Party 5 has been out since late November, it fought off a stern challenge from Square Enix' latest eagerly anticipated PS2 RPG, Full Metal Alchemist, which ties in with a massively popular original manga and animated series launched by the company earlier in 2003. It debuted at number two in the chart with sales of 116,000 units.

The rest of the top ten is made up of Sony's Gran Turismo 4 demo, Prologue, at number three - with the series as a whole having now sold 33 million units worldwide, the company announced this week - while Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin drumming game (PS2) is at eight, Sony's Hot Shots Golf 4 is at nine, and Capcom's Mega Man Battle Network 4 Tournament: Red Sun on the GBA is at ten.

In hardware terms, the GBA retakes its position at the top of the rankings for the first time since Sony cut the price of the PS2 a couple of months before Christmas, with 36 per cent market share compared to the PS2's 34.7 per cent. It's a good week for GameCube in this area as well, with just over 28 per cent market share. Xbox continues to languish at just over 0.5 per cent share, but at least it's now comprehensively outselling the PSone (0.16 per cent share) and the SwanCrystal (0.09 per cent share).

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