Smash Bros. Leads Nintendo Wii to Victory in Japan

Update - The Top 50 Media Create software sales have now been released, showing that Nintendo was indeed able to ship out far more copies of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Wii than most expected, as the game has sold through a whopping 95% of its stock to sell around 820,000 copies in its first week on sale in Japan. On the hardware side, even though Wii takes the top, the boost is lower than some may have thought, plus the DS has been overtaken by the PSP! Check out the results below:

Media Create Top 30:
28th January-3rd February, 2008

near as well as its predecessor, you have to wonder if a third version will ever come now

Position	Title/System/Publisher	Sales (Plus Total Where Available & Commentary)
1.)	Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, Nintendo)	819,647 | NEW
2.)	Devil May Cry 4 (PS3, Capcom)	205,390 | NEW
3.)	Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut (PS2, Bandai-Namco)	116,928 | NEW
4.)	Haruhi Suzumiya's Wonderment (PS2, Banpresto)	114,335 | NEW
5.)	Wii Fit (Wii, Nintendo)	73,325 | 1,356,000
6.)	Disgaea 3 (PS3, Nippon Ichi Software)	54,596 | NEW
7.)	Devil May Cry 4 (360, Capcom)	40,023 | NEW
8.)	Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (NDS, Nintendo)	34,474 | 175,000
9.)	Assassin's Creed (PS3, UbiSoft)	27,895 | NEW
10.)	World Soccer Winning Eleven: Ubiquitous Evolution 2008 (PSP, Konami)	25,523 | 102,000
11.)	Wii Sports (Wii, Nintendo)	Falling from No.5 in this crowded week
12.)	Family Ski (Wii, Bandai-Namco)	A fantastic new entry considering the lack of advertising this has received in Japan so far
13.)	Mario Party DS (NDS, Nintendo)	Finally out of the Top 10, down from No.6
14.)	Monster Hunter Portable 2nd (PSP, Capcom)	Back out of the top end of the charts, down from No.7
15.)	Need for Speed: Pro Street (PS3, EA)	Surprisingly high new entry
16.)	Need for Speed: ProStreet (PS2, EA)	New entry for EA's lacklustre racing entry
17.)	Professor Layton and the Devil's Box (NDS, Level 5)	Back down seven places
18.)	Drum Master DS (NDS, Bandai-Namco)	Amazingly this is still going, nudging back up two places
19.)	Doraemon Baseball: Dramatic Stadium (NDS, Bandai-Namco)	Dropping back down eleven after a very impressive performance
20.)	Mario Kart DS (NDS, Nintendo)	Slipping five places
21.)	Wii Play (Wii, Nintendo)	Slipping a further five
22.)	Final Fantasy IV (NDS, Square-Enix)	Quickly dropping now, down from No.11 and basically has no chance of ever reaching the million mark and will be lucky to hit 750,000 at this rate
23.)	Lucky Star: Misasagi Sakura Gakuen Sakura Fuji Festival (PS2, Kadokawa Shoten)	A strong start followed by a massive drop from last week's No.3
24.)	Nep League DS (NDS, Jaleco)	Leaping back up fourteen places
25.)	After-School Boy (Konami)	New entry for this promising looking adventure
26.)	Dragon Quest IV (NDS, Square-Enix)	Falling fast after a sterling performance over the Christmas and New Year period, down from No.13
27.)	Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii, Nintendo)	The DS edition seems to have killed this off, falling from No.14
28.)	Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo)	Sadly looking like struggling to creep to the million milestone, down eleven places as people turn to Smash Bros. instead
29.)	Mario Party 8 (Wii, Nintendo)	Again effected by Smash Bros. fever, falling ten spots
30.)	Animal Crossing Wild World (NDS, Nintendo)	Slipping just five
31.)	New Super Mario Bros. (NDS, Nintendo)	Sliding down seven
32.)	Kanji Brain Test 2.5M (NDS, IE Institute)	Falling nine
33.)	Professor Layton and the Curious Village (NDS, Level 5)	After riding high thanks to the sequel, this falls back down from No.18 and will probably only sell a million if the 3rd game boosts it back up again
34.)	Yggdra Union (PSP, Sting)	Quickly down from No.9 after what seemed a great start
35.)	Powerful Pro-kun Pocket 10 (NDS, Konami)	Following a good spell at the top end of the charts, this drops down from No.21 in this busy week
36.)	Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3, Activision)	Down from No.22
37.)	Entomologist: Heavenly Countryside (NDS, Marvelous Entertainment)	New entry
38.)	Yakuza 2 (PS2, Sega)	Back down from No.27
39.)	More Brain Training (NDS, Nintendo)	Sliding eight spots
40.)	DS Literature Collection (NDS, Nintendo)	Back down from No.29
41.)	My Housekeeping Diary (NDS, Nintendo)	Falling eleven places
42.)	Mario Strikers Charged (Wii, Nintendo)	Down nine places and despite this recent boost must still be disappointing given the GC version's strong performance
43.)	World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 (PS2, Konami)	Falling down from No.28
44.)	Rune Factory 2 (NDS, Marvelous Entertainment)	Quickly down from No.26, faster than expected
45.)	Sight Training (NDS, Nintendo)	Down six and looking increasingly unlikely to make it to the million mark
46.)	Kanji Test 2 (NDS, Rocket Company)	Down six places
47.)	More English Training (NDS, Nintendo)	Down twelve places and considering this has done nowhere
48.)	Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (PS2, Capcom)	Slipping just one as DMC fever hits
49.)	Haruhi Suzumiya's Promise (PSP, Bandai-Namco)	Down five as people go for the PS2 versrion instead
50.)	Brain Training (NDS, Nintendo)	Re-entering the chart once more

Media Create Hardware Chart

Format	This Week	Last Week	2008 Sales	Lifetime Sales
Wii	94,473	74,544	542,982	5,159,142
PlayStation Portable	72,528	77,933	544,777	8,146,371
Nintendo DS	67,472	79,370	599,354	21,772,405
PlayStation 3	41,796	34,363	217,366	1,859,042
PlayStation 2	12,115	11,364	83,527	21,010,564
Xbox 360	6,060	4,296	29,361	536,702

Stick around for more chart updates next week...

Original Story, 01/02/08: Despite all the talk of various retailers only getting a low supply of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it seems that the Kyoto Company was still able to pour enough units onto shop shelves to ensure the hotly anticipated Wii fighter would blow away the competition this coming week and become the fastest-selling Wii game so far in Japan. Below are its sales, along with some other new releases, all courtesy of Japanese blogger sinobi (first day numbers are based on Famitsu leaked numbers):

• Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, Nintendo) - 500,000 (80% sell-through of initial stock)


• Devil May Cry 4 (PS3, Capcom) - 140,000 (60% sell-through)


• Haruhi (PS2) - 105,000 [Limited Edition - 80,000 (over 80% sell-through), Normal - 25,000]


• Tales of Destiny Director's Cut (PS2, Bandai Namco) - 70,000 (Limited Edition - 60,000, Normal - 10,000 60% sell-through)


• Disgaea 3 (PS3, Nippon Ichi) - 40,000 (Limited Edition - 20,000, Normal - 20,000)


• Devil May Cry 4 (360, Capcom) - 30,000 (60% sell-through)


• Assassin's Creed (PS3, Ubisoft) - 20,000


• Family Ski (Wii, Bandai Namco) - 10,000


• Houkago no Shounen (NDS) - 4,500


• Sega Rally REVO (PS3, SEGA) - 2,000


• Sega Rally REVO (360, SEGA) - 1,600


• Sega Rally REVO (PSP, SEGA) - 1,000 (Overall 10% of initial stock on all formats sold)


• Mushishi: Amefuru Sato (NDS) - 1,000

But just how quickly can Nintendo get more stock onto the shelves? When it releases NEW Super Mario Bros., the initial stock levels were meant to be lower than expected, around 700,000, but the game ended up selling 900,000 in its first week due to quick re-stocking. Could that be the case here and the game could end up closer to the million mark by next Wednesday's Media Create chart update?

Cubed3 will keep you informed as soon as more details are forthcoming. For now, though, be sure to share your thoughts on this remarkable start by posting in the forum below...