UK and Japanese charts – 32-bit era over
Need for Speed holds onto number one slot in UK
The first UK and Japanese charts released today, from ChartTrack and MediaCreate respectively, show no real surprises from the first week’s games sales in 2006.
EA’s money-spinner ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted’ remains at number one in the UK’s all format charts – its sixth week at the top, which is the longest stretch for any title to hold onto the top slot for 2005. SPOnG has a strong sense of déjà vu, so we looked back to the charts for the first week of 2005 and realised that ‘Need for Speed: Underground 2’ was topping the charts for the whole of January last year.
It will be interesting to see if ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted’ can hold onto the top slot, with some pressure on the cards from Namco’s forthcoming Xbox 360 ‘Ridge Racer 6’ due out in two weeks time. Whilst there have been no new releases over the last week, the top ten titles continue to jostle for position, with EA’s ‘The Sims 2’ performing well, going up from eight to number four. The worst news for parents nearing the end of their tether everywhere is that Ubisoft’s ‘Crazy Frog Racer’ is up 18 places from number 37 to 18.
ChartTrack’s market report figures show that the New Year begins with the usual post-Christmas slide, with total units down 49% and total value down 51%. PSP suffers the worst Christmas hangover, with the highest drop in sales, down 62% in units.
The main difference between the UK and Japan is the startling number of Nintendo DS titles in the Japanese top ten (8 out of the 10), with Brain Training 2 in the number one slot. It seems our Japanese cousins cannot get enough of training their brains with their DS’s.
SPOnG has also noticed that Chart Track seem to have sneakily dropped the PS1 budget charts. No more PS1 charts then - which kind of marks the end of the 32-bit era. ChartTrack has been running PS1 charts for over 10 years, since the console's UK release in late September 1995, making the longest running platform to be charted.
Goodbye PS1, you have served us well.
Click here to see the full UK All Formats chart
Japanese Charts (All Formats, week commencing December 26th 2005)
EA’s money-spinner ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted’ remains at number one in the UK’s all format charts – its sixth week at the top, which is the longest stretch for any title to hold onto the top slot for 2005. SPOnG has a strong sense of déjà vu, so we looked back to the charts for the first week of 2005 and realised that ‘Need for Speed: Underground 2’ was topping the charts for the whole of January last year.
It will be interesting to see if ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted’ can hold onto the top slot, with some pressure on the cards from Namco’s forthcoming Xbox 360 ‘Ridge Racer 6’ due out in two weeks time. Whilst there have been no new releases over the last week, the top ten titles continue to jostle for position, with EA’s ‘The Sims 2’ performing well, going up from eight to number four. The worst news for parents nearing the end of their tether everywhere is that Ubisoft’s ‘Crazy Frog Racer’ is up 18 places from number 37 to 18.
ChartTrack’s market report figures show that the New Year begins with the usual post-Christmas slide, with total units down 49% and total value down 51%. PSP suffers the worst Christmas hangover, with the highest drop in sales, down 62% in units.
The main difference between the UK and Japan is the startling number of Nintendo DS titles in the Japanese top ten (8 out of the 10), with Brain Training 2 in the number one slot. It seems our Japanese cousins cannot get enough of training their brains with their DS’s.
SPOnG has also noticed that Chart Track seem to have sneakily dropped the PS1 budget charts. No more PS1 charts then - which kind of marks the end of the 32-bit era. ChartTrack has been running PS1 charts for over 10 years, since the console's UK release in late September 1995, making the longest running platform to be charted.
Goodbye PS1, you have served us well.
Click here to see the full UK All Formats chart
Japanese Charts (All Formats, week commencing December 26th 2005)
| POS. | FORMAT | TITLE | PUBLISHER |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | DS | Brain Training 2 | Nintendo |
| 2. | DS | Animal Crossing: Wild World | Nintendo |
| 3. | DS | Mario Kart DS | Nintendo |
| 4. | PS2 | Kingdom Hearts II | Square Enix |
| 5. | DS | DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain (Brain Training) | Nintendo |
| 6. | PS2 | Front Mission 5: Scars of the War | Square Enix |
| 7. | DS | Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time | Nintendo |
| 8. | DS | Gentle Brain Exercises | Nintendo |
| 9. | DS | Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop! | Bandai |
| 10. | DS | Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon: Blue Rescue Force | Pokemon |
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Comments
Joji 10 Jan 2006 15:07
1/3
Glad to see all those DS titles ripping up the charts in japan. Hurry up and give us some of those Brain Training games. Any u.s/u.k release date on them?
I feel that our fickle u.k charts are rather pale in comparison. To see NFS series get attention from the fanboys is nice but it's such a shame when more deserving titles get lost amongst tripe like the Crazy Frog bs. I hope Ridge Racer on 360 steps in and shows EA how a driving game should be done.
Hearing of the DS selling out in japan of late is also a huge boost for Nintendo. It's very rare you every hear of a total japanese sell out (shame the same can't be said for 360).
Maybe Nintendo's promise of developing games quicker for the DS is a having an effect on the japanese charts at last. With seven of those games from Nintendo that's a lot of choice for all those new DS owners. Then there's Bleach and Resident Evil to come yet too. Both should move more DS units hopefully, if there are any to move in japan.
I can see the suits at Sony really scratching their heads in confusion as to what the PSP can do in this kind of situation. Frankly, I can see no recovery for the PSP from it's worldwide sales compared to the DS. PSP will get some good games though, problem is that PS2/3 need good games too and are more of a priority one for Sony with MS and Nintendo on their heels. Where does this leave PSP in a year or two when all the new home consoles are out, especially with the DS kicking arse and taking names?
I feel that our fickle u.k charts are rather pale in comparison. To see NFS series get attention from the fanboys is nice but it's such a shame when more deserving titles get lost amongst tripe like the Crazy Frog bs. I hope Ridge Racer on 360 steps in and shows EA how a driving game should be done.
Hearing of the DS selling out in japan of late is also a huge boost for Nintendo. It's very rare you every hear of a total japanese sell out (shame the same can't be said for 360).
Maybe Nintendo's promise of developing games quicker for the DS is a having an effect on the japanese charts at last. With seven of those games from Nintendo that's a lot of choice for all those new DS owners. Then there's Bleach and Resident Evil to come yet too. Both should move more DS units hopefully, if there are any to move in japan.
I can see the suits at Sony really scratching their heads in confusion as to what the PSP can do in this kind of situation. Frankly, I can see no recovery for the PSP from it's worldwide sales compared to the DS. PSP will get some good games though, problem is that PS2/3 need good games too and are more of a priority one for Sony with MS and Nintendo on their heels. Where does this leave PSP in a year or two when all the new home consoles are out, especially with the DS kicking arse and taking names?
OptimusP 10 Jan 2006 22:23
2/3
Well... the Brain Training games aren't really made by Nintendo, Mario and Luigi RPG 2 and Pokémon isn't either. Nintendo has been using a lot of small unknown developers for making some well known DS-games Nintendo then publishes. Nintendogs, Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing (as with the GC-version, only one programmer was assigned) are really the only games straight from EAD.
realvictory 11 Jan 2006 23:57
3/3
Um... I'm not "glad" as such - in fact, I don't really care about Japan. Rather, I'm impatient to see all those games come over here to the UK. If Nintendo only made games for Japan and not Europe, I don't think I would give a stuff about them. Why don't they hurry up with bring games over here, it's not fair! I played Mario Kart online and got bored, now I demand Animal Crossing! ;)
On the other hand, I wish I had the money to buy a PSP so I can play Outrun on it! You only need Outrun on a console to make it worth buying!!
On the other hand, I wish I had the money to buy a PSP so I can play Outrun on it! You only need Outrun on a console to make it worth buying!!