Japan Charts: Tokyo Xtreme Racer 01 streaks away

Sega/Amusement Vision's GameCube heavyweight F-Zero GX has failed to emulate Mario Sunshine's success this time last year by reaching the top of the Japanese gaming charts. Nevertheless, in shipping 40,000 units since its launch on July 25th, the spectacular racing game did become the top selling Cube title this week, appearing in the chart at No.5 and shunting its compatriot Kirby Air Ride down to sixth.

However, it was Genki's Tokyo Xtreme Racer 01 on PS2 that swept past the competition leaving them to wallow in a cloud of dust, seizing top spot - from the PS2 version of Jikkyo Power Pro. Baseball - with 131,000 units sold.

Meanwhile Capcom's Mega Man X7 demonstrated no such staying power, tumbling seven places to No.9. It should be gone by this time next week.

It's also likely that Sony's PS2 Online title SOCOM: US Navy SEALs will be on its way out after entering the charts at No.8 with just 21,000 units sold. Then again this is hardly surprising for such a distinctly Western, third person action title, which wasn't even published by Sony in the region. In terms of online gaming, Japan still needs to be convinced by Western offerings, preferring to stick to adaptations of big name RPGs like Final Fantasy.

Other new entries this week included THE PRINCE OF TENNIS: Smash Hit! from Konami, which appeared at No.3 and EVE burst error PLUS on PS2 at No.7. This writer fancies that those are mistranslations, and hopes aloud that his Japan-savvy editor gives him a ring from his holiday estate as soon as he reads this...

And on their way out of the chart this week were Irem's R-Type Final on PS2, and Hideo Kojima's GBA pet project Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand from Konami, which you'll have heard of because it's driven by the amount of sun in view of the cartridge...

On the hardware front, the GBA retained its summer dominance, with the combined sales of GBA SP and vanilla GBA totalling some 44.07 per cent (33.44 per cent SP, 10.63 per cent GBA), whilst the PS2 could only muster 41.13 per cent market share.

Oddly enough though, this was in spite of no key software releases on the GBA. Although Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 remains ingrained mid-chart, slipping just one place to No.4 this week, it was the PS2 that might have enjoyed success. As it is, Tokyo Xtreme Racer 01's success and a PS2-dominated chart only helped the console claim 1.61 per cent more of the market whilst the other format stood still.

The GameCube continued to improve week on week, creeping up to 12.38 per cent, but the Xbox's tale of Japanese woe continued, as the console's share fell below 1 per cent to 0.83, a hair's breadth more than the WonderSwan Crystal and, humiliatingly, even less than Sony's ailing PSone at 0.89 per cent.

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