Summary and a Look Ahead:

It was a decent week for software sales in Japan. No games sold more than 100,000 units for the week, but five titles did top 50,000 units. The big releases for the week were on PS3 and PSP. A new Dragon Ball game for PS3 and a new soccer game for PSP were amongst the five titles to top 50,000 units for the week. After never showing up on the top twenty preorder lists of the last several weeks, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for Wii sold about 35,000 units.

On November 21, Nintendo will be launching the DSi LL – a DSi with larger screens. Nintendo believes certain games become more enjoyable on a system if others are watching you, so it will be interesting to see if any unexpected software shoots up in response to the DSi LL launch. Tamodatchi Collection, Pokemon, Inazuma Eleven 2, and Dragon Quest IX have been the key software of late on the DS, so at the very least these games should see slower declines or increased sales on the DSi launch as key DS software tends to closely follow hardware sales. DSi LL should insure the DS will be well over 100,000 again for the November 22 week.

Preorders have been interesting over the last week. Final Fantasy XIII now has over 600,000 preorders in Japan with another month before release. The only other highly preordered PS3 games releasing in 2009 are Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which should top 50,000 week one given that it has 20,000 preorders and Assassins Creed 2 which has about 12,000 preorders.

For the DS, the new Professor Layton has 120,000 or so preorders for its release later this month. On Wii, Tales of Graces has over 50,000 preorders ahead of its December 10 release. New Super Mario Brothers Wii now has over 75,000 preorders ahead of its December 3 release. Samurai Warriors 3, also releases on December 3 and is an interesting case. The game has four skus – a Wii + game bundle, the game itself, a game + classic controller pro bundle, and a limited edition of the game. The game + controller bundle has begun showing up at the very bottom of the preorder list alongside the standalone game sku. So for the two bundles we can track, there are at least 40,000 preorders. The limited edition, and the game + Wii bundle have to conservatively push this to at least 50,000 though. Taiko Drum Master, which for a while was the most successful third party Wii game in Japan has a sequel coming out on November 19 which should perform well for Wii, although it is not in the preorder listing.

Understanding the Japanese Preview:

Rather than saying x game for y platform sold between 20,000 and 28,000 units as in the past, the preliminary data will be broken down into charts by platform. Within these charts, there will two additional categories besides the rounded sales figure under ‘sales’. On the left will be ‘low end’ depicting the lowest amount the title likely sold for the week, while to the right will be ‘high end’ depicting the highest amount the title likely sold for the week. As always, this data is preliminary, and therefore, not final, but it is based on a sample. The varying platform market share the sample represents is why consistent sellers like Wii Fit do not always appear in the preliminary data. Sales for this report are for the week ending November 15, 2009.

Software by Platform:

Wii Software – Only two Wii games charted in the preliminary data. Wii Fit Plus (game only) charted with sales of almost 60,000. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles came in second, with sales of 35,000 units. In the final data, Wii Sports Resort, Mario & Sonic, and a handful of other titles should finish with sales of over 5,000 units. Expect Wii hardware sales to rise into the 27,000 to 33,000 unit range for the week on Final Fantasy and seasonal factors.

PS3 Software – The PS3 had a decent week for software, with Dragon Ball topping 70,000 in its debut and two other titles – Winning Eleven and Bayonetta over 10,000 units. Winning Eleven remains ahead of the previous title on PS3, with sales dropping to 48,000 week two, a nearly identical ~75% drop to last year. Bayonetta fell to 11,000 units and will probably be out of the top twenty next week. Expect PS3 hardware sales to fall into the 32,000 to 42,000 unit range in the wake of the Winning Eleven bundle effect last week.

X360 and PS2 software – No Xbox 360 or PS2 titles charted in the preliminary data. Expect X360 hardware sales to remain in the 3,000 to 5,000 unit range while PS2 hardware sales remain in the 1,500 to 3,000 unit range.

PSP Software – The PSP had a good week, with seven difficult to translate titles charting in the top twenty. A new soccer game on the PSP was the top title in Japan – with sales of 83,000 units. After that, there was a big gap with the second place game on PSP, Persona 3 coming in at 19,000 units. Three new titles followed with sales between 11,000 and 15,000 units each. Warship Gunner and Higurashi Jan both charted in the high four digit range. Expect PSP hardware sales to fall into the 35,000 to 45,000 unit range as the PSP Go impact on hardware diminishes.

DS Software – The DS had six skus across five games chart in the preliminary data. Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver came in at 83,000 units for the week, up slightly from last week. Tamodatchi Collection fell to 50,000 units for the week, perhaps indicating it will see a big lift when the DSi LL releases next week. A new Rockman (Mega Man) game debuted to sales of 36,000 units in Japan as Capcom continues to look for its first DS million seller. Final Fantasy Gaiden fell to 22,000 units for the week, while Summon Night X dipped to 7,000 units. Expect DS hardware sales to drop into the 30,000 to 38,000 unit range ahead of the DSi LL launch next week.

Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com