BAAOUM !! Mario Party 6's sales have exploded, the game has recorded its highest sales number ever, even higher than at the time of its release: more than 100.000 units ! This happens very rarely, especially for a game already 6 weeks old. Naruto 3 (+90%), DK Jungle Beat (+65%), Mario Tennis (+95%), all these games have enjoyed the benefits of this excellent week. What could be the main reason beside Christmas, is that they are many less titles than last year, just a bunch of very good games; so, at the moment, you might not have much choice if you are a Japanese GC player, but whatever you pick up, you pick up quality. On the other hand, the DS is here too and it's selling well. So, an additional explanation to this very good end of the year could be the Japanese economy, which is doing much better than in recent years. Unfortunately for Super Robot Taisen, it wasn't here anymore.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
Ah, some action this week. Christmas is coming and what happens when Christmas is coming ? Nintendo games sales climb ! There's no mistake about it. Mario Party 6 and Mario Tennis gain one place each, but the former sells 20.000 units more compared to last week. Naruto 3 falls but increases its sales by 9.000. The only one game taking no advantage of this week's moment of bliss is Gundam, already out. But another robot has just landed, Super Robot Taisen, doing much better than Gundam (sales x2). The second entry is Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, which doesn't shine particularly with 47.000 units, it's even less than Donkey Konga one year ago.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
Sales are pretty stable, even increasing for Mario Party 6 (+10.000 units, but going down in the ranking), which is good news and indicate that GC titles are not suffering too much from the sales of the DS. However, when comparing with last year's Mario Party at the same period (4 weeks after release), we note that MP6 is actually 70.000 units under the sales numbers of MP5. If the DS doesn't have a too negative impact, it seems it still has one, unless it can be blamed on players getting tired of Mario Party or the game being less well scored by magazines, though it's unlikely, the microphone being an interesting new feature. This week also came in a new Gundam game, Gundam vs Z Gundam by Bandai with a little 18.000 units. Here too we can compare with a previous Gundam game for GC, Senshitachi no Kiseki: and the fact is that this latest Gundam is selling twice less than the older one released this same year. Bad news for future Gundam titles, though unlike the first game this one is not exclusive to the system.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
There's not much happening on the GameCube side due to the release of the Nintendo DS whose games stole most of the top spots. Unlike last week however, Mario Party 6 is leaving Naruto 3 behind. Will it last ?

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
Interestingly, in the second week, the sales difference between Mario Party 6 and Naruto 3 is weakening in profit to Naruto. The contrary usually happens when a third party is involved, that's an evidence of Naruto's strength as a franchise in Japan. The rest is more or less common knowledge: no new entry and everyone going down.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
Here comes a new challenger ! ... No, it's the same one: Mario ! Mario vs Mario !? Yes, and between them, Naruto as a guest star. Naruto 3 starts around the same numbers or less as for Naruto 2, which is slightly disappointing. Mario Party 6 on the other hand starts better, about 10.000 units more than Mario Party 5 (when it was released, there were many titles around though, unlike today), could it be all thanks to the mike ? Mario Tennis is decreasing slowly, like most titles do. Compared to Mario Golf at the same point (after 4 weeks sales), which was released more than a year ago, Mario Tennis is doing much better, with a total of 100.000 units more ! Even in Japan tennis seems more popular than golf.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
With no new release before next week, Mario Tennis is bound to sell and we're bound to see quite much of it in this ranking. And despite the usual 50% loss in term of sales in the third week, the game is still doing ok.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
Sadly, Famitsu's ranking doesn't allow us to know what happened to Zoids VS 3 and Paper Mario then. Never mind, they probably kept sliding away; in the meanwhile, Mario Tennis predictably didn't perform as well as the week before though it's still coming close to 200.000 units. For a second week, among the games released this year, this puts it at the level of Pikmin 2 and Paper Mario, in other words, among the best performers.

Ace ! Mario Tennis enters directly at the first sport with almost 150.000 unit sold. That's good, not amazingly good (the days of glory are long gone) but good nonetheless, after this too long quiet period and quiet sales.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
Is it possible for Kururin Squash to do even less than last week ? Yes it is, of course. Its performance for this week is so bad, that it actually ends at the bottom of Famitsu's ranking, behind Paper Mario and Zoids VS III, which, disgruntled by Mario stomping on it last week, decided to revenge and gained 6 places.

Note: for this period, the ranking is based on Famitsu top 30 not on Dengeki top 50, hence the lack of results below 30.
Well, we'll never know what happened to Konjiki no Gashbell. Anyway, there's a new entry this week, from Nintendo this time, it's Kururin Squash. Despite its low price, people seemed to realize how poor it was of Nintendo to make a simple conversion of their Game Boy Advance title. The game records one of the weakest start ever for a Nintendo GC title in this ranking (the lowest must have been Legend of Golfer who did not even "start" - didn't make it in the charts -). That's definitely no good news for Nintendo, even though they might be pleased to see Paper Mario is doing better than Zoids VS III, despite the latter one being 10 weeks younger...

Damn, I should have been an economist: as suggested last week, Zoids VS III's collapse happened fast, 12 places in one week with a loss of about 80% of its sales potential. Nothing else interesting to report.

Zoids to the rescue ! Finally some change, and we owe it to the third instalment of Zoids VS. This time around, sales have improved since episode 2 by 10.000. Good, but it may be only an effect of this extensive dry period among releases, and consequently may end abruptly as soon as next week. Below, not much as changed, we find our two old friends, Paper Mario, still hanging, and Konjiki no Gashbell, falling slowly.

I told you it wouldn't change.

As expected: quite much the same as last week.

I'm afraid the planning is trying to tell us something: that weeks like this are going to be seen quite often in the next months.

Can't help yawning when seeing today's ranking. Three titles left, Paper Mario goes a bit down, Konjiki no Gashbell goes down too where he was before, Powerful Pro Baseball 11 goes up and, too, back to its former position. Guys, what's the use to move if you just go back to the same spot ?

This week is the contrary of last one: games which were going up, are now going down, and the only title going down, Pikmin 2, is now the only one to be stable. This said, there's nothing happening.

After last week's Famicom Mini madness, things quiet down a tad. Some first party games like Paper Mario and Donkey Konga 2 stopped moving, while third party games Konjiki no Gashbell and Powerful Pro Baseball 11 surprinsingly took a few steps up. Only Pikmin 2 went down a little, not necessarily good news for the incoming Pikmin 2 bundle.

When 10 new Famicom Mini enter at the top spots, the ranking gets cramped. It's normal to make room for these excellent titles (including jewels such as Super Mario Bros 2 and The Adventure of Link *drool* *drool*), therefore our dear GameCube is a bit overshadowed and all its titles in the ranking go down the slope. We can however find a satisfactory sight in the hardware sales where, along with explosive sales (they doubled since last week !) from the Game Boy Advance SP, once again thanks to the Famicom Mini *kisses them* *loves them*, we see also an increase in GameCube sales, about 50%. A good week for Nintendo even if all the happiness wasn't coming from the GameCube.

I can't believe it, Megaman X Command Mission has already left the ranking... ouch. Talk about disastrous sales... and both Megaman and RPG are popular in Japan. What went wrong ? Paper Mario RPG, for its part, is doing very well with strong sales in the third week, compartively, it sells better than Pikmin 2 on the same period by 6.000 units. One positive surprise comes from this week's new entry: Konjiki no Gashbell!! Yuujou no Tag Battle Full Power. A games from an anime which proves itself popular by entering the top 10, a prowess indeed for a third party game.

They left the ranking and we'll miss them: Donkey Konga (again) and Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life for Girls (already). They entered the ranking and we fear for them: Megaman X Command Mission and Digimon Battle Chronicle. Well, not that we care so much about what's going to happen to this poor copycat of Pokemon that Digimon is. The concern is more about Capcom's latest failures in their GameCube efforts. The PS2 version of Command Mission does not start very impressively either (13th spot), but the GC version got a very weak start, not even selling better than Pikmin 2, fourteen weeks since its release ! The good news however is that Paper Mario RPG is still doing pretty well and display a healthy shape for its second week sale. The next two months should be awfully quiet indeed for the GameCube.

The scene is quite similar to last week: one new entry, all the other titles fall, and one goes out (Wario World). The entry however is Paper Mario RPG, which sells 100.000 units more than last week's Pro Baseball 11. It's not so much as one may think though, Pikmin 2 sold better in its first week, and so did Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Tales of Symphonia last year. Considering that the GameCube hardware base is regularly increasing and that RPG are popular, the 144.000 units of Paper Mario RPG may come as a little disappointment. Next week sales will be very important to measure how well the game can perform. One possible explanation to these not-so-good sales might be due to the lack of hype surrounding the game. It was unveiled a few weeks before the E3 and is now released short afterwards, it didn't leave much time to build up excitement among players. Moreover, the quality of the title itself is subject to questioning. One Japanese magazine, which is reputed to give friendly score, gave it a 33/40 with three of its editors giving it a 8, and by doing so, they gave a less good mark than they did for Pro Baseball 11. For a Nintendo title, 33/40 in this magazine is not so good. Is Paper Mario RPG another example of a rush Nintendo title for GameCube ?

Good things never last. Despite one new entry, Konami's popular baseball title, sales are slipping.

The GameCube is finally awakening in Japan, but it's unlikely to last longer than July, which is a pretty busy month regarding new titles. Harry Potter went back to Hogwarts while three new entries came to have fun on the GameCube ranking holiday resort. The girl version of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is the one to perform the best at the 8th rank with however modest sales, a few places lower we find Korokke alias Croquette, an anime-style of game, and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Karts at the bottom. Hopefully this latter one will be gone next week. The rest of the ranking is made of familiar faces: Donkey Kong, pretty stable in both Konga games, Pikmin 2, going up once again and Wario World, fading slowly. The best is yet to come in the second half of July with titles like Paper Mario 2, Megaman X Command Mission, Powerful Pro Baseball 11 and Digimon. All of them have the potential to strongly surpass the latest entries.

Double Kong ! Donkey Konga 2: Hit Song Parade grabbed the spot number 2 this week, inviting the first Donkey Konga title to follow its trail by making a 40 places jump up. It's during times like this that you can't help thinking Nintendo is smart, really good at doing business at least; the reason for this prodigious return is due to the Donkey Konga double pack (the two games sold for a rather cheap 7,980 yen). Sales for both games take in account this special pack. The downside is that Donkey Konga 2 sales, inferior to its predecessor, might appear even weaker once you removed sales sale from the pack and judge the game as a stand alone title. However, with holidays coming and its career just beginning, only time will tell if Hit Song Parade can become a hit, on its own.