Tales of Symphonia Wii Starts Strong in Japan

The latest first day sales from Japan are in thanks to blogger sinobi and it appears that Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World has started strong. Whether or not it automatically claims the No.1 spot in Japan next week, though, is another matter, since SEGA's Derby Stallion DS has sold just as much on its first day. Also of note is the impressive start for Band Brothers DX and the moderate first day sales of Disgaea DS.

Check out the full list of first day sales below:

• Derby Stallion (NDS) - 120,000
• Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Wii) - 120,000
• Band Brothers DX (NDS) - 70,000
• Evangelion (PS2) - 30,000
• Higurashi (NDS) - 22,000
• Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono (PSP) - 17,000
• Gundam Operation Troy (360) - 20,000
• Basara X (PS2) - 16,000
• Bleach 3rd (DS) - 14,000
• King of Fighters '98 (PS2) - 13,000
• Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (NDS) - 11,000
• Battlefield BC (360) - 9,000
• The Tower (NDS) - 4,000
• Winning Post 6 (PSP) - 3,000

Derby Stallion is well on track to become the strongest handheld outing so far, with the previous version on GBA selling 90,000 lifetime and the PSP edition ending up at 121,000 overall. This is tracking closer to the final PlayStation 2 iteration, which sold a stonking 306,000 in week one and went on to sell through 604,000 copies. Another hit for SEGA then! Band Brothers DX is a fantastic start, showing that after the success of Ouendan's sequel, rhythm/music games are much more popular now than back when the DS launched (the original reached around the 70,000 after a whole month!). This DS sequel should easily pass its predecessor's 160,000 lifetime total. Following this, as well, things should be huge for Rhythm Tengoku Gold in July...Finally, The Tower DS selling just 4,000 on its first day may look like a complete disaster for Yoot Saito and his team at Vivarium (the guy's behind Odama on GameCube and the idea to include a speaker in the Wii controller), yet given the past sales of The Tower series (the first PC edition became SimTower in the West) has been quite poor to say the least. Given how The Tower SP on GBA sold 15,000 in its first two weeks, and this is an upgrade of that, and still came to the US despite low sales, chances are probably high for a translation whatever happens.

Stick around for next week's full Japanese chart updates...