Nintendo's DS game New Super Mario Bros has managed the almost unprecedented feat of recording its seventh consecutive week of sales above 100,000 units in Japan for the week ending July 9th, with a dip of only 20,000 units on the previous week. This gives it a lifetime total in Japan alone of well over 2 million units.
Nintendo’s blockbuster was challenged for the number one spot this week by Namco’s third and apparently final entry in the Xenosaga role-playing game series. Although the title certainly performed better than the recent Nintendo DS version of Episodes I and II, it initially fared less well than previous entries in the series.
Namco Bandai also saw success with PSP title Tekken: Dark Resurrection, which has performed better than almost any other new PSP game so far this year, even if its overall unit sales are still relatively low. Capcom’s new Mega Man Zero spin-off at number six has also done fairly well – notably better than the two recent PSP Mega Man remakes in Japan.
In terms of hardware, the Nintendo DS saw 150,463 sales (including 1,009 units of the original hardware), with the PSP’s total up by over 6,000 units following the release of Tekken, to a total of 31,959. The PlayStation 2 sold 23,332 units, and the Game Boy Advance family of consoles 4,217. The Xbox 360 slipped slightly from its year high last week to 1,610 units, while the GameCube fell to below 1,000 units for the first time, at 934.
