The weekly software sales in Japan are in, and it seems as if Nintendo's exercise game Wii Fit is not only causing a run on Wii hardware: It's significantly spiking sales of other Wii games, too.
Did you think Wii sales were on the decline in Japan? Did you think Super Mario Galaxy was going to tank outright? I myself was guilty of these transgressions, but I stand corrected.
Two weeks ago, Super Mario Galaxy only clocked in at No:11 on the charts, selling fewer than 34,000 copies. But look at the numbers now:
01 Mario Party DS (Nintendo) - 180,000 / 826,000
02 Wii Fit (Nintendo) - 124,000 / 535,000
03 Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Sony) - 116,000 / NEW
04 Prof. Layton and Pandora's Box (Level 5) - 74,000 / 444,000
05 Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo) - 74,000 / 550,000
It's pandemonium. Especially when you consider the second half of the chart:
06 Dragon Quest IV (Square-Enix) - 73,000 / 868,000
07 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Nintendo) - 64,000 / 212,000
08 Wii Sports (Nintendo) - 55,000 / 2,341,000
09 Wii Play (Nintendo) - 55,000 / 1,921,000
10 Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: the Labyrinth of Forgotten Time (Square-Enix) - 41,000 / NEW
Yep, Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Mario and Sonic both pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and sold tens of thousands more copies than they did over the last couple of reporting periods. Near as I can tell, Wii Fit is causing more people to go out and buy Wii, and they're picking up a couple few games with it, too.
There's also just the general year-end excitement that happens 'round this time, and we'll see more boosts in sales overall as the week goes on. I wonder what kinds of legs Mario Galaxy et al will have throughout the year.
Will Mario drop off after New Year's, or will it soldier on at 30,000 copies per week? Has it finally caught on with Wii owners? Are traditional video games dead, or were they just waiting for Mario to come back?
Not one XBox game made the chart.