This week, Japanese were probably in holidays and most of our usual contributors did not have the charts available. Numbers are based on the only one we could find: Enterbrain's top 10 video games. But the ranking itself is from Dengeki based on their previous week's results, it's a tad complicated, and that's why numbers do not represent the exact ranking. You will notice anyway that GameCube main titles keep coming up.

The Christmas effect is on the way. Sales for Mario Party 5, Pokemon Colosseum and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! are going up of 7 ranks while most of the games in the top remain at the same place or lose a few spots. If this is great for these older titles, things are a bit worrying for more recent ones like Donkey Konga which don't manage to gain a rank up and Baten Kaitos which keeps falling. One Piece and the latest entries do not perform well either.

As expected, all GameCube games around and between the 40th and 50th spot last week are now gone. The GameCube hardly managed to enter the top 10 at all, only thanks to Bandai with One Piece Grand Battle! 3 selling barely 60.000 units. Sale results for Donkey Konga are weak, inferior to Mario Party's in its third week, probably because of the price of the bundle (with congas). Naruto 2 and especially Baten Kaitos fall harder than expected and that's worrying for this ambitious title. Nintendo's own games on the other hand do well and manage not to slide too badly this week despite many new entries (17, from which 12 in the 20 first places !). As a surprise, Finding Nemo, which was released last week but did not appear then, is showing up at the 50th rank. On a side note, we learn than Resident Evil 0 total sales in Japan have been of 364.000 units, pretty good indeed.

14 titles entered the video games top 50 this week and obviously some GameCube titles departed. Among them: Medarot Brave, Racing Evolution and Gotcha Force, each stayed only one week, along with Pokemon Box which stayed some time longer as you know. Three titles out of the fourteen were from GameCube, meaning neither Crash Bandicoot 4, Mickey & Minnie Trick & Chase, nor Hudson Selection PC Kid and Finding Nemo made it into the top. Naruto 2 entered with better sales than Mario Party 5, while Baten Kaitos started weakly (though its sales are as good as Harvest Moon and Tengai Makyo first week sales together !). Mario Kart sales improved slightly and it seems it's going to be GameCube's Christmas best selling title. Other games like PSO and Dragon Ball hangs loosely on the edge of the ranking and might have already left us next week.

Many games entered the top this week, but none of them really managed to perform well. Not even Mario Party 5 which, with less than 100.000 unit sold, might have some tough time trying to beat Mario Part 4's sales of 750.000. Strangely enough Phantasy Star Online III hardly surpasses PSO I & II Plus, in some charts it even underperforms it ! Given Mario Party 5's modest numbers, it's easy to guess that the other results are not so good either, whether it is R: Racing Evolution, Dragon Ball Z or Gotcha Force. Medarot BRAVE which has a similar theme as Gotcha Force, overtakes the three of them despite being less media-driven. This week is still to be remember as the week with the most GameCube titles in it of the year, with 11 games. Can Nintendo do better than this in the weeks before Christmas ?

A quiet week. Pokemon Colosseum didn't start very well, it started under the most positive expections at least.

Sales of Mario Kart: Double Dash!! fell very sharply, they've been reduced to one third of their first week sales. That's quite unexpected, it makes the game selling less well than Final Fantasy Crsytal Chronicles. Maybe it's because more big titles are coming soon, maybe it's just a temporary break or, worse, because the game will not sell as well as expected. We believe though that upcoming games are responsible for this decrease as many GameCube titles left the ranking (Harvest Moon, Tales of Symphonia, Mario Golf and Wrestlemania X9). However, there's one little good thing that we sort of expected: Pokemon Box is back in the top 50 ! It's been almost half a year since its release and it's the third time that it comes back ! The reason is obvious: Pokemon Colosseum. People are getting the cheap Pokemon Box to sort their Pokemon before getting Colosseum. Hopefully it hints to future good sales. Number 1 this week is Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest for Game Boy Advance with 61.000 (Dengeki)/73.902 (Media Create).

Dammit ! No, don't worry, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! IS number one. But once again, Dengeki didn't give the figures and that's likely they won't publish them anymore which seriously compromises our ranking. I tried however to get some numbers and added what I could find. It's a bit messy but I'm going to explain. Dengeki claims that Mario Kart sold 176.000 units since its release, within 3 days (the game was sold on November 7 and the ranking records till November 9). However, another source, unidentified but most likely reliable because quoted everywhere, claims that Mario Kart sold 182.000 units on the first day. That makes quite a big margin with Dengeki's numbers. One possible explanation is that Dengeki's numbers are based on real sales, it does not include unconfirmed reservations, so I would tend to believe Dengeki's numbers. This little difference is important. In the first case, it would mean that Mario Kart is the GameCube title which sold the fastest in its first week this year, in the other case, it'd mean that it didn't manage to sell more than Crystal Chronicles (but undoubtedfully will in the coming weeks).

In any case, as Dengeki underlines, we notice a serious decline in GameCube sales since last year. Hopefully time will help to fill the gap. Here are the first week results for a number of best-selling GameCube titles: Super Smash Bros. Melee (359.000), Super Mario Sunshine (309.000), Mario Party 4 (189.000) and so Mario Kart (176.000). Let's remember however that a game like Mario Party 4 left the top 50 with 750.000 units sold... Dengeki has another interesting comparison, about the end of the year sales, a strong selling period which has just started and lasts until January. They give the percentage of hardware sold during this period in regard to the total annual sales of three systems. It is clear that Nintendo sells half or more of their consoles in Japan at this time of the year. First the N64: 1996 (29.6%), 1997 (54.9%),1998 (58.3%),1999 (55.2%),2000 (47.2%). Then the GameCube: 2001 (68.1%), 2002 (54.7%). Then the PS2: 2000 (14.6%), 2001 (38,8%), 2002 (36.8%). And now, after this very long talk, it's time for the ranking.

There's a bad piece of news this week, nothing to do with Nintendo though: we don't have the sales number, Dengeki's fault, they did not publish them. Hopefully it is only a temporary problem and not a permanent change, in that case it would make the ranking much less interesting and easy to grasp. This said, there's nothing much happening this week. Made in Wario stays number 3 despite several PS2 entries, but it's impossible to say without the sale figures how good exactly its performance is. Other titles fall a little; Billy Hatcher and Shikigami no Shiro II are out. Hopefully numbers will be back for Mario Kart release otherwise the party will be half-spoiled...

Surprinsingly, Atsumare ! Made in Wario is still in good shape. It lost only 1/3 of its last week sales number, slid slightly of 2 spots despite a surge of PS2 entries (11 !) and almost equal the 8-weeks released Mario Golf in term of sales. It's interesting also to note that Made in Wario on GBA is still in the top (#23, 472.897), the GC version is unlikely to equal such a success though. There's a new entry and if you read next week, you know it's Shikigami no Shiro II. It began weakly, but that was expected. The other titles are all falling quickly to join Animal Forest e+ which left the ranking. There won't be any new release next week, but then... it's the big jump ! Strong releases will flow continuously till Christmas. So, if there's one time in the year you should check Samurai Nintendo's GameCube ranking, it'll be then. Don't miss it and check every week to know how the GameCube perform in Japan for the most crucial period of the year !

Despite three games leaving the ranking, compared to last week, it's a pretty good week for the GameCube in Japan ! The games to leave are Tengai Makyo II (ouch ! fell more than 11 places and stayed only 3 weeks), finally Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and re-Pokemon Box which might come back next week. The good comes from Made in Wario which is maybe not a great game but still managed to grab the spot number 1 with about 100.000 units sold, as much as Kirby Air Ride in its first week. Impressive for such a modest game, the popularity of the GBA version must be quite good. The other numbers are interesting too, Kirby Air Ride and Animal Forest e+ managed to improve their sale number since last week ! and other games, except Billy Hatcher, have stable sales. Next week we'll see how hard Made in Wario falls (woul be a big surprise if it didn't) and if Shikigami no Shiro, a shooter, makes it in the top. With such a good week, we can't wait to see how well Mario Kart will perform !!

One of these weeks again... soon, all GameCube titles will be selling under 5.000 units even new comers such as Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, which starts even lower than the one week lasting Sega's former title in the top 50, Gekitou Pro Baseball. Anyway, sales are quite bad once again. Probably in expectation of the gaming madness coming in the next two months (see the planning). The highest falls come from Tengai Makyo and Crystal Chronicles, the latter one being on the edge of the ranking world and soon to be overtaken by Kirby Air Ride for the total number of units sold. Kirby being the only one GC title going up this week in Japan just when most western critics are writing how bad this game is...

Even though Mario Golf and Animal Forest e+ go up in the ranking, even though Harvest Moon stays at number 18 and Pokemon Box re-enters, this week is worse than the past one. You need to check the weekly sales to understand that; all of them are decreasing, sharply for most of them, slightly for a very few. As you can see, all GC games are selling under 10.000 units which is very little. We could have thought that a few weeks without new games would have helped the current titles to improve their results but it seems it does not work like this. Next week, Billy Hatcher will be released, poor sales are too be expected, and the week after Made in Wario whose sales are unpredictable.

Slam ! Take that ! This week hurts the GameCube badly, all the titles are falling sharply and the new entry, Tengai Makyo, does really poorly with the weakest sales of all the four RPGs released lately. Like for racing games, we can blame Nintendo for a very bad schedule, with too many games of the same genre coming out at the same time. Four games left the ranking: Zoids VS II, Pokemon Box, and, now that the baseball season is finished, the 2 baseball games from Sega and Namco. The prospects are more gloomy than ever.

We were hoping the situation would improve for Harvest Moon but the game is still following the path of Viewtiful Joe with equal sales in second week. Mario Golf overtook it and got the number 4th spot, the highest for a GameCube title this week. Things haven't changed either for Tales of Symphonia whose selling curve is still under Final Fantasy at the same period. This week mostly confirms what we saw in the past ones: the crude fall of Zoids VS II, Power Pro Baseball quiver of life opposed to Gekitou Basball tremor of death, Kirby still fighting and Pokemon Box refusing to leave. The GameCube needs a winner, surely some games in the top could take this part, but none of them seems to draw enough attention. It's unlikely coming games like Far East of Eden Zero 2, Billy Hatcher or even Wario Ware will change anything. The only hope is around Christmas season, from November, with titles like Pokemon Colosseum, Gotcha Force and above all, Mario Kart.

Not a thrilling week once again. Harvest Moon grabbed the spot number 5 with sales lower than F-Zero GX and almost equal to Viewtiful Joe. Not a good omen. It seems it's now a habit that every week, games sales reduce by 50% from the past week. That's exactly what's happening to Tales of Symphonia and Mario Golf, the latter one losing even more than half. While Pokemon Box re-enters and Animal Forest e+ climbs a bit, Zoids VS II tumbles and Sega's baseball enters discreetly, falling short compared to Namco's own baseball game. The Cube version is outsold by the PS2 version by 38.000 units, scary. Interestingly, sales for Live Power Pro 10 were not affected by Gekitou Baseball. All in all, it's another bad week, despite 10 GC titles in the top 50, sales are far from being exciting, and not only for the GameCube. The number 1 this week is a Square-Enix's RPG for PS2 which barely sells 135.000 units. Quite a surprise.

This week's results are painfully surprising. While we were expecting good numbers from Tales of Symphonia, the game plunged in its second week losing about three quarters of its past sales ! Compared to Crystal Chronicles at the same time, Tales of Symphonia is 25.000 units under. And that's not all. Tomy's Zoids VS II started poorly with only 15.000 units, much less than Naruto, and Mario Golf doesn't reach 100.000 units. All the other sales fall sharply. Is there any explanation to such a bad week ? At least, we can observe that all the games but five fall in the chart (the four games going up are 2 poor-selling PS2 titles and 3 GBA titles including... Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire ! Realeased last year ! Incredible !). One possible explanation is that it's the end of holidays and return to school for most in Japan also. Next week is marked by the release of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and Sega's Gekitou Pro Baseball (mixing real and anime players), hopefully results for these new entries and the current titles will have improved.

Enter Tales of Symphonia. Namco's title came very close to Crystal Chronicles initial sales numbers and still got the number 1 spot never achieved by the Square-Enix game. Both titles have been released on a friday, however it is rumored that Tales of Symphonia's sales kept going strong after August 31 were the current chart stops, we'll see about that next week. By the way, second in the top is Sword of Mana on Game Boy Advance. Every week since its release, Final Fantasy loses 50% of its sales. It seems to indicate the game will have a poor long-term potential. Kirby Air Ride, which gains 2 places, might overtake it next week. F-Zero GX adventure in the ranking will come to a close probably in a few days, while Viewtiful Joe has left again, probably definitely, followed closely by Pokemon Channel. Once more, next week will be very hot for the ranking with two possible blockbusters: Mario Golf, family games and golf being popular in Japan, it might give the game a boost, and the very eagerly awaited Zoids VS 2. Zoids VS has been a succesful title in Japan, this sequel is likely to get strong sales too.

Although its sales have been divided by 2 since last week, Crystal Chronicles goes one place up, passing Kirby Air Ride for total sales. While Kirby and Animal Forest are stable, the other titles fall slightly. Only F-Zero GX collapses, 16 ranks down, it seems impatient to leave the chart. Next week is a very important week once again, where Final Fantasy failed it's up to the acclaimed Tales of Symphonia to succeed.

There hasn't been any new releases this week and there won't be next week either, so it's all about last week games to fight their way to the top. It doesn't work well for the latest releases: Crystal Chronicles sales fell very sharply in the second week though it loses only one spot, F-Zero GX keeps sliding and Dragon Drive lost an impressive 14 places. On the other hand, all the old runners-up go up, including Pokemon Channel which seemed lost last week and now gained 16 places ! Pikachu power ! 16 places up also for Viewtiful Joe coming back in the top 50 after 2 weeks out, good news and congratulations Joe.

Since the release of Zelda, more than 6 months ago, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles has the most successful first week for a GameCube title. But the sales number is not impressive though, less than 200.000 again (the number 1 this week is Winning Eleven 7, a soccer game on PS2: 700.000 units sold). It will be important to see how it stands in the next weeks. As we underlined in a previous edition, thid party games are crushed: the new entries of last week are already gone and replaced by poor contestants; Dragon Drive and Code Veronica altogether don't even manage to reach 10.000 units. Pokemon Channel is about to leave the ranking while, surprisingly, Pokemon Box jumped up of 11 spots. And Kirby Air Ride finally sold more than 200.000 units.

Things are going bad for F-Zero GX, only one week has past and it's already behind Kirby Air Ride because its sales diminished of 2/3. Other than that Animal Forest e+ is stable, Pokemon Box and Channel fall hard, and Viewtiful Joe and Charinko Hero are already out of the top, replaced by 2 games, Bomberman Land 2 and Lupin the Third. The former one has been released for 2 weeks on PS2 and is still selling better at the moment than the GC version... ouch. Ah, but next week is an important week for the ranking, we'll see how well Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Dragon Drive and, above all, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles sold. It'll be a big task for that one, its score in Japanese magazine has been far from impressive, we'll see how Japanese care about that.

We're sorry to be right again... as we suspected last week, F-Zero GX did not get good sales, though as we also said, the series is not so popular in Japan. It didn't sell 50.000 units and did slightly less good than Naruto in first week. It seems impossible for the game to reach the half a million sales in its career and it's going to be difficult just for 200.000. One important thing is how the game is going to sell next month and if it will quickly collapse in the chart or not. Another reason for such a slow start might also be the summer holidays. All game sales seem sluggish as all GameCube titles lose some places. One happy note: Charinko Hero is still here !

There's something really worrying for Nintendo at the moment. Since the release of Zelda last year, which sold more than 600.000 units (and that's not so big, Ocarina of Time sold 1.450.000 in its life time in Japan), not a single GameCube title managed to reach just 200.000. The best so far are Animal Forest e+ (165.000), Kirby Air Ride (140.000) and Pokemon Box (145.000). For third parties, except Naruto, it's even worse, games don't even come close to 100.000 total sales ! Viewtiful Joe has been released for a month, it has sold only 60.000 copies. Many others just sell around 5.000 and are already out of the top 50 the next week. It shows one important thing that Nintendo and others must understand: games poorly made will sell poorly. Instead of making updates (Animal Forest e+) or uninteresting games (Pokemon Box & Channel), they should focus more on quality games. It's used to be their spirit, now it seems it's completely forgotten.

This week, the best entry is Live Power Pro Baseball 10, a popular silly series from Konami. It was sold at the same time on PS2, however on Sony's console it sold 250.000 copies more ! The rest of the new comers include Pokemon Channel, which started weakly, and Charinko Hero, which made it in the top. Yep, this one makes us happy, check our preview. Tomorrow, F-Zero GX will be released. We shouldn't expect any big sales (the series is not so popular in Japan and the game was ranked less good than Kirby Air Ride), though a surprise is not impossible (there's been a good promotion around the game and it's a quality title).

No, Kirby didn't manage to grab the top spot... but Nintendo did anyway ! Super Mario Advance 4 on Game Boy Advance being number 1 this week. A truly good week for the GameCube with 8 titles in the ranking ! since we follow the chart they've never been so many. Kirby starts strong though not as good as Animal Forest e+. Another surprise is that Gero Gero King DX and even Star Soldier, remake of an old PC Engine game, made it in the top 50. Really weird, last week Auto Modellista failed to do the same. Other sales are stable or declining except for Animal Forest which gains 2 spots. Next week should be interesting too with the release of Charinko Hero, Doraemon, the next instalment of the popular series Live Power Pro Baseball and the very discreet (because too bad ?) Pokemon Channel.

Disappointingly, Capcom's Auto Modellista U.S.-Tune didn't make it in the top 50. Nothing much happening this week, all the games lost a couple of spots except the incredible Naruto which gained a few. Kirby ships tomorrow, be here next week to see if the popular pink bubble can grab the first spot !