Sony Awards Japan’s Top Sellers

This would not usually be the most interesting of news articles if it weren’t for the bizarre gaming pleasures of the Japanese.

The following games received Gold awards signifying half a million copies sold:

DX Life II
Final Fantasy Collection
Pachislot Aruze Kingdom 2
Pachislot Aruze Kingdom 4
Super Robot Wars Alpha
Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden
Tales of Eternia
Tekken Tag Tournament
Gekikuukan Pro Baseball End of the Century 1999
The Bouncer
Bio-Hazard Code: Veronica Complete

Now, we understand the success of The Bouncer and Tekken but Pachislot Aruze Kingdom? For the uninformed, Aruze is the company that recently acquired SNK. The games shown in this list are Pachinco simulators. And, for the even less well informed, Pachinco is a strange Japanese gambling game involving the controlled decent of ball-bearings.

These next three games won SCE Platinum awards, meaning they each sold in excess of a million units:

Simple 1500 Series Vol. 1 The Mahjong
Onimusha
Gran Turismo 3 A-spec

GT3 and Onimusha we can understand, but look what’s at the top of the charts! Simple 1500 Series Vol. 1 The Mahjong! You must remember that these people are the mainstay of the global games industry.

There was also one double platinum award for more than two million sales, handed to Square for Final Fantasy IX.