Japan April 2006 Hardware Sales: Nintendo DS Gobbles Up The Competition

The Nintendo DS and DS Lite continue to rule the Japanese retail video game hardware market, jointly accounting for more than 72% of Japan’s hardware market for the month of April. According to the official Japanese game chart provider Media Create, the DS Lite zoomed past other handhelds, taking an impressive 60.19% of the April hardware sales, amounting to  690,000 units. Its predecessor, the Nintendo DS, managed to get 12.01% with 138,000 units. The PSP came in third with 11.34% (130,000 units). Interestingly, Nintendo’s other portable handhelds, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, and Game Boy Advance, took 2.69%, 2.63% percent, and .02 % of the hardware market respectively.

In the conventional console market, the PlayStation 2 tops the chart with 112,045 units (9.77%), followed by the struggling Xbox 360 with close to 10,000 units. Only 4,500 GameCubes were sold.

Having sold more than 820,000 DS units, it’s just but natural for DS games to dominate with six games entering the top ten software chart: Animal Crossing: Wild World (2nd), Otona no DS Training (4th), Tetris DS (5th), Oideyo Dobutsu no Mori (6th), Otona no DS Training Eigo (7th), and Pokemon Ranger (9th).

Konami’s Winning Eleven 10 for the PS2 ranked as the most popular title for the month across all formats, while Nintendo’s Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance (also playable on the DS) was the third most purchased title.

Rounding out the list as 8th and 10th top selling Japanese games for April are Square Enix’s DQ Shonen Yangas and Konami’s Proyakyu Spirit 3, both for the PS2.

The Nintendo DS and DS Lite continue to rule the Japanese retail video game hardware market, jointly accounting for more than 72% of Japan’s hardware market for the month of April. According to the official Japanese game chart provider Media Create, the DS Lite zoomed past other handhelds, taking an impressive 60.19% of the April hardware sales, amounting to  690,000 units. Its predecessor, the Nintendo DS, managed to get 12.01% with 138,000 units. The PSP came in third with 11.34% (130,000 units). Interestingly, Nintendo’s other portable handhelds, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, and Game Boy Advance, took 2.69%, 2.63% percent, and .02 % of the hardware market respectively.

In the conventional console market, the PlayStation 2 tops the chart with 112,045 units (9.77%), followed by the struggling Xbox 360 with close to 10,000 units. Only 4,500 GameCubes were sold.

Having sold more than 820,000 DS units, it’s just but natural for DS games to dominate with six games entering the top ten software chart: Animal Crossing: Wild World (2nd), Otona no DS Training (4th), Tetris DS (5th), Oideyo Dobutsu no Mori (6th), Otona no DS Training Eigo (7th), and Pokemon Ranger (9th).

Konami’s Winning Eleven 10 for the PS2 ranked as the most popular title for the month across all formats, while Nintendo’s Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance (also playable on the DS) was the third most purchased title.

Rounding out the list as 8th and 10th top selling Japanese games for April are Square Enix’s DQ Shonen Yangas and Konami’s Proyakyu Spirit 3, both for the PS2.