The Japanese game retail market continued to shrink in 2009, with overall sales down 6.9 percent year over year to ¥542,640 million ($5.9 billion), according to new data from Famitsu publisher Enterbrain.
It's a less drastic gap than last year's 17.4 percent fall, however. As in 2008, it was hardware sales that saw the bigger year-over-year decline; Enterbrain's figures, as translated by Andriasang, put the drop at 13.6 percent to ¥216,490 million ($2.4 billion).
In terms of units, Nintendo DS led the hardware charts, outselling the PSP nearly two to one -- although its unit sales combine all models of the handheld, from original to Lite, DSi and DSi LL.
Nintendo DS: 4,025,313 (29,160,589)
PSP: 2,307,971 (13,386,455)
Wii: 1,975,178 (9,501,999)
PlayStation 3: 1,727,041 (4,391,407)
Xbox 360: 331,706 (1,197,873)
Software fell 1.8 percent to ¥326,160 million ($3.6 billion). The top-seller was Square Enix's Dragon Quest IX:
1. Dragon Quest IX (Square Enix, DS): 4,100,968
2. Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (Pokemon, DS): 3,382,597
3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo, Wii): 2,485,150
4. Friend Collection (Nintendo, DS): 2,311,948
5. Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix, PS3): 1,698,256
Dengeki Magazine parent ASCII Media Works recently released its own figures showing a retail market decline, although ASCII placed the year-over-year drop at 16 percent for hardware and 4 percent for software.
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So now it is a good sign, that after an 17 percent drop in 2008, japans games industry only sees a 7 percent drop? After the horrible year 2008 you should expect an upturn and I remember many analysts predicted one for Japan in 2009.