Nintendo Holds 20 Best Selling Games in Japan

moderatorrater writes "Nintendo's dominance of the Japanese sales charts continues, as Gamasutra reports on the top games for Japan's 'Golden Week' celebration. The top 21 titles sold in the country were all on Nintendo formats; most actually developed by Nintendo itself. FFXII: Revenant Wings topped the list at number one, and along with five other DS or Wii titles was the only sign of third-party competition in the Japanese best-sellers market. 'With the holiday period functioning somewhat like the Christmas period in the West, there were no new entries in the top thirty - although a number of family friendly titles did reappear in the top ten, with Yoshi's Island DS at number four with 58,948 units sold. New Super Mario Bros. on DS re-emerged at number eight with 51,681 units sold, with the second Brain Training game at number ten.'"

Third Party Dev & Publisher Response:

[AbsoluteXyro]

Hey! Lets make PS3 games!

Re:

[badasscat]

Hey! Lets make PS3 games!

Well, why not? How are you going to compete with Nintendo on their own platforms?

If I was a dev, I'd look at this list and think to myself that Nintendo's pretty much got their platforms locked up. This has always been one of Nintendo's problems in dealing with third party developers.

Re:Third Party Dev & Publisher Response:

[Mattintosh]

How, exactly, is publishing a game on the same platform considered "competition"?

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I browse the games section (either at a store or on a website), I look at anything that I want to buy, then decide to buy it. I don't buy games one-at-a-time unless there's only one worthwhile game for sale when I'm looking. When I finish with the games I've purchased (either finish them or get bored with them), then I go buy more. So unless you're (as a hypothetical developer/publisher) releasing shitty "shovelware" games, there's an equal likelihood that I'll buy your game along with Nintendo's. It's not an either/or proposition.

On the flip side of things, I will not be buying a PS3 or an Xbox 360, therefore if you publish titles on anything other than the Wii, you will lose a potential sale to me. (I happen to be a Nintendo fanboy. If you prefer to be a Sony or MS fanboy, rearrange the names of the consoles in that last sentence. If you're willing to shell out for multiple platforms, ignore it entirely. It still holds true for a significant number of players, though.)

Nintendo's problems with 3rd parties seem to be manufactured by the gaming press and by anti-Nintendo fanboy-lunatics (not just fans, but the retarded fight-to-the-death fanboys. a.k.a. "Rabid Fanboys"). A true businessman in the game publishing industry would be smart to look beyond that hype.

Re:

[PyroMosh]

Do you seriously not get that many (most?) people don't buy games in bulk? sometimes I'll buy two or three at a time, if there's some kind of sale, or if there's a few must have titles that are clearance, or there's some other compelling reason to. But Most people are not going to spend more than $100 on games at a time.

Nintendo *IS* competing with it's third parties. If I go to the store and I want to buy *a* game today, it'll probably be Super Paper Mario. I buy the AAA titles and the titles that have

Re:

[DDLKermit007]

Yeah, because developers shouldn't have to be held to the same standards as Nintendo. Not to mention, Nintendo is a bastard about putting out comes continuously. I buy a crapload of games, and the last game I picked up for the Wii before Super Paper Mario came out for the Wii was Elebits when it came out (Virtual Console games not counted). Thats a pretty fucking long lull any, and every developer *cough* EA *cough* should have jumped on. Too bad none of them had the brains to realize what was going on at t

Re:

[PyroMosh]

Oh, you're absolutly right. But my point is that developers are absolutly competing with Nintendo (the only point of yours I have contention with). And it's hard to do so, because Nintendo is great at what they do. you're right that they compete with Nintendo whether they are on a Nintendo platform or not. But in a sense, more so when a Nintendo console is dominant.

Re:

[aliquis]

Well, the problem when is only that the third parties makes games WHICH SUCK, to bad for them.

If they made better games you would consider buying them instead of super paper mario? Right? But now you think super paper mario is a better title and more worthy of your money? How is that a problem?

I guess that's why the non-Nintendo titles on their charts are so low down, on ALL platforms.

Yoshi and Mario rules, and you know it, but everyone is free to imagine that they are only for kids, their loss, not mine ;D

Re:

[aliquis]

Nintendos problem with 3rd parties was that the royalties/licenses/whatever for publishing a game for their platform was high, and with the N64 more expensive due to cartridges instead of CDs.

I have no idea if that have changed, but for the DS it worked good for them since the carts where much faster than UMD (oh, and they doesn't fall out.. ;D)

Third-Party Devs *Can* Compete with Nintendo!

[LKM]

Can we please stop with this moronic idea that third-party devs can't compete with Nintendo? Good games have always done well one Nintendo's platforms, even during the "dark days" of N64 and Gamecube. The issue isn't that third-party devs can't compete with Nintendo, it's that they often chose not to, instead assigning their third-string teams to create a bunch of shovelware ports.

If the main developer on a platform constantly creates titles of the highest possible quality, obviously, the people who buy int

Re:

[Soiden]

Square Enix can answer your question in two words: Final Fantasy. What's Final Fantasy? One of the best games ever made [From I to XII, it's a success]. What's the problem with other third parties? They don't have iconic games. When they say Activision, I think of Pitfall. When they say EA, I think of sports. When they say Ubisoft... After a while, I think of Rayman. They need to make iconic games. Not crappy games.

Re:

[KDR_11k]

EA is putting plenty of work behind establishing a strong Wii presence. They're making a Sims game for the Wii and lately they're even trying new ideas. I think that's the greatest archievement of the Wii: Getting EA to innovate again.

Wii Sports?

[SighKoPath]

I see Wii Sports there in the number 3 spot:

3 Wii Sports - Nintendo Wii - 84,782

Does this also mean that the Wii sold nearly 85 thousand units in a single week?

Re:Wii Sports?

[Zarxrax]

Wii sports is not a pack-in in Japan, so those people actually bought the game.

Re:

[SighKoPath]

Okay, thank you for clearing that up for me.

Re:

[aichpvee]

No, it's sold separately in Japan.

Re:

[aichpvee]

Damn, I wasn't fast enough! Also, I think Nintendo actually sold around 110,000 Wiis that week in Japan.

Re:

[grogdamighty]

Other people have already pointed out that Wii Sports is not a pack-in for Japan, but I'll add that Golden Week's NPD numbers show Wii sales of 102,522 - greater than the 85k.

Re:

[PaulMorel]

Actually, 102K wiis were sold last week in japan.

Japanese sales charts via Kotaku [kotaku.com]

Re:

[DonkeySpew]

It isn't a pack-in so people actually bought it. Also, the Wii itself likely sold over 100 thousand units. The sales of Wii Sports has been a pretty good indicator for actual Wii sales and since it's up from last week (Wii Sports ~ 58,000 and Wii ~ 102,000) I can see it selling well over 100k units.

Re:

[GweeDo]

To anwser your question: yes
Wii Sports is not a pack in in Japan, it is one of the highest selling games on the Wii over there (I think WiiPlay and it are really close in sales right now).

Hardware sales in Japan 30th april - 6th may

[aliquis]

DS Lite: 285,123, up 29,152 (11.39%)
Wii: 101,320, up 1,202 (1.17%)
PSP: 35,172, up 1,312 (3.87%)
PS2: 14,815, up 2,231 (17.73%)
PS3: 12,974, up 183 (1.43%)
Xbox 360: 3,205, up 43 (1.36%)
Gamecube: 394, up 227 (135.93%)
Game Boy Micro: 340, up 290 (46.03%)
GBA SP: 302, up 193 (38.99%)
DS Phat: 69, up 23 (25.00%)
GBA: 11, up 11 (N/A)

So if Wii sports comes with every remote back and 85.000 was bought for 100.000 Wiis, then yes.

285.000 DS vs 35.000 PSP, ownage?
Cool that God of War or whatever it's called (the huge title

Hats of to Nintendo

[anss123]

It's almost like we're in the eighties again. Nintendo is no longer the snobish monopolist with kiddy games, like they were in the nineties, but back to having the first choice console for families.

MS is a bit like Sega, trying to be hip but falling at it. While Sony is NeoGeo, first choice for the gaming snobs.

The only one missing is Atari: the clueless blundering money-grubbing fools with a few good ideas.

Re:

[Nossie]

"While Sony is NeoGeo, first choice for the gaming snobs. "

Problem is NeoGeo's machines were worth every penny and arcade perfect..

remember NeoGeo only started selling consoles because of demand.... Their whole business model was around renting systems until customers demanded buying them.

Re:

[p4rri11iz3r]

So, in other words, Sony is both NeoGeo AND Atari?

Re:

[aichpvee]

I think microsoft is Atari, too.

Re:

[frosty_tsm]

The only one missing is Atari: the clueless blundering money-grubbing fools with a few good ideas.

That must be either Vista or that Phantom.. thing.

Re:

[Nossie]

sounds like vista...

Good potential but bad implementation ?

Lynx and jaguar both fit in that category

Re:

[aliquis]

Another thing I find interesting between Nintendo vs Sega is how great Mario have aged (Mario world, yoshis island, mario 64, paper mario, ..) compared to Segas Sonic (hey, all Sonic games suck!?! How come? Sonic would be more fun in a monkey ball bubble than any modern sonic game.)

I can't understand why they haven't killed Sonic of already, they can't make anything good with him anyway, either the game is new, modern and suck, or it's the same old and therefor suck.

FFXII Revenant Wings

[Sciros]

I assume this game is in the process of being localized for North America... definitely one I'm looking forward to. The music is the same as in the PS2 game :)

I wonder if US publishers have ever thought to publish a title in Japan in time for Golden Week (much like they time holiday season releases in the US)...

Re:

[7Prime]

Yes, it's being released in a week or so, actually. And... the music is the same as FF12? EH! Crap... I may not buy it afterall. I hated the music in FF12, just so lame and lacking in soul. Status quo wannabe-classical soundtrack background music, almost as bad as FFT.

Re:

[Sciros]

Oh, you didn't like it? That's a shame... I really enjoy it myself, but I like that particular style of music. It is indeed reminiscent of (not nearly as good as, of course) John Williams, but then again I like Williams.

But yeah, I watched some clips of the game on IGN, and it was definitely the same music (Giza Plains theme, etc.).

Re:

[7Prime]

I love John Williams. I didn't when I was younger, but when I started studying composition (and especially film music) in college, I developed an appreciation for him. Hitoshi Sakimoto, is nothing like JW, IMO. He lacks the thematic repetoire. He had no litemotifs, his character themes are uninspired, and his dungeon music is more background noise than music. He's too traditional, and not experimental enough for my tastes, either. I got into video games, entirely through Uematsu's work (not kidding), who I

Re:

[syrion]

What's your opinion on Akira Yamaoka? An entirely different genre, of course, but I find that I enjoy his music more than any of the RPG baroque-wannabe music these days. Some of it's even beautiful.

Re:

[Sciros]

Hmm I think our tastes are vastly different :-) I enjoy Mitsuda and Sakimoto. Uematsu is actually one I don't enjoy as much... Danny Elfman is great, but I wouldn't put him in my personal list of favorites... there I'd have Williams, Horner, Jerry Goldsmith, and maybe Hans Zimmer (although Zimmer and Badelt I think are actually clones and I can't say they are great composers so much as they have good taste for what to heavily borrow from and I enjoy the 3 melodic progressions they reuse in all their scores

Re:

[7Prime]

You have some valid points. But I can't stand James Horner these days. His early stuff was killer, but when he hit Titanic, I lost all respect for him. Overly-mellodramatic cheese-ball crap. I have a special hate in my heart for cheesy celtic-pop. He just milks the drama to the point where it feels forced.

I feel exactly the same way about Mitsuda, who I think followed exactly the same path as Horner. I loved his scoring with Chrono Trigger, and his work for Xenogears wasn't bad in spots, but then Chrono Cro

Re:

[Sciros]

I like a lot of Mitsuda's melodies, although I have been somewhat dissatisfied with him recently. After Xenosaga Ep.1 his work definitely didn't evolve. Not in the slightest. Omega from that soundtrack was probably the most ambitious piece he's ever written.

Chrono Cross... I actually like much of it. But then again I don't see it as "melodrama," perhaps because I didn't play the game and just pick a choice set of pieces from the 3-disc score? Hard to say, but pieces like Scars of Time make me happy. It has

Re:

[7Prime]

Actually, my biggest problem with CCs soundtrack is how badly it interacts with the story. He continually "blows his proverbial load", with tear-jerking melodies that have no place being where they are. Example, the "Another World" overworld theme could have made for a wonderful sad event melody later on in the game, however, it's pulled out about 20 minutes into the game as the main overworld theme at a time in which there I found it absolutely silly to be portraying utter dispair (if you had just been thr

Re:

[Sciros]

Ok that makes sense and now I understand 100% where you're coming from. As for myself, I tend to listen to a lot of VG music (heck, music of ALL backgrounds and genres) standalone, so if it's good in that sense it makes me happy enough. As for how it is incorporated into the game, that is often a whole different story. Take Halo 2, for instance. The music in-game is sparse and barely fits half the time. As a standalone score, it is far better.

That seems to be true of a lot of games, and Chrono Cross is prob

Re:

[Cornflake917]

On which FF iteration did Sakimoto take over the musical score from Uematsu?

Re:

[7Prime]

Oh wow, Gilgimesh was in there??? I never knew! Where? I love his battle theme in FFV. Have you listened to the Black Mages version (Uematsu's progmetal band)? It's crazy good.

Re:

[earthbound kid]

I wonder if US publishers have ever thought to publish a title in Japan in time for Golden Week (much like they time holiday season releases in the US)...

Golden Week isn't a gift giving holiday. It's a chance to travel somewhere. So, sales of games are actually pretty flat during GW. The big gift giving holiday is (sort of) New Years. At New Years, kids get money from their relatives, then they go out to the stores and blow it on toys. That's as close as Japan has to our holiday rush.

Re:FFXII Revenant Wings

[badasscat]

Golden Week isn't a gift giving holiday. It's a chance to travel somewhere. So, sales of games are actually pretty flat during GW. The big gift giving holiday is (sort of) New Years. At New Years, kids get money from their relatives, then they go out to the stores and blow it on toys. That's as close as Japan has to our holiday rush.

Well, this is not exactly true. The big *gift-giving* holiday is actually Christmas, just as it is here - yes, they do celebrate it as a consumer holiday. And yes, they do have a pre-Christmas holiday rush there. The difference is it is not a *family* holiday. That's New Year's. Christmas is a holiday for couples, which actually makes it really big in the video game market, because all those girlfriends go out and buy games for their boyfriends, and now with the DS, boyfriends can do the same for their girlfriends (ditto for husbands/wives, but it's still younger people that spend the most on games).

The post-New Year's week's sales are usually big too for the reason you mentioned, but all of December is huge because of Christmas. The DS sold like 2 million units alone last December, if I remember right.

Golden Week is *usually* bigger than the weeks surrounding it strictly for the reason that a lot of people have that whole week off, so they buy games to play. It's not Christmas or New Year's big, but it's still usually bigger than most weeks.

This year seems to have been fairly slow, actually, which makes it sort of strange to see the numbers being called out in western news, as if there's something noteworthy about them.

And Mario Party is coming....

[Dark Paladin]

Mario Party is coming at the end of the month, so I don't expect this trend to change any time soon.

The other thing I wonder about is with Nintendo's dominance of the Japanese market, I'm wonder how long until we see more 3rd party developers decide that their RPG/fighter/FPS game doesn't *need* 50 GB of storage and 3 billion operations per second. (Personal note: I'd be stoked for a high res FFVII remake for the Wii. I know, I'm weak.)

Re:

[Nossie]

I'd like that too... never played FFVII but I want to .... just cant get past the crap resolution (it used to be the turned based constant attack by easy mobs with slow loading fmv that put me off before)

then I went back to it on the psp emulated and if if it werent for the resolution I could see myself playing it properly.

Re:

[7Prime]

Even better. Square just announced that they're doing 3D remakes of FFIV V and VI for the DS... which is wierd, seeing as though they JUST re-released them for GBA. I don't care so much for IV and V, but VI DESPERATELY needs a 3D remake, as it was designed with more 3D architecture in mind. Much more needed than simply a FF7 "clean up". FFVI is a far better game anyway.

Re:

[Dark Paladin]

I had heard about IV - do you have linkage to V and VI?

Re:

[7Prime]

No, but they ALWAYS remake V and VI after they do IV, it's just kinda a given. I could imagine them skipping V one of these times, since it wasn't originally released in the US, and thus, won't sell as well as a "classic remake". But VI is definitely a given, it's the best selling FF game prior to the PS era.

Re:

[ShadowsHawk]

I'm a little irritated because I just finished about a week ago. Now I have to wait for them to get VI out in 3D because I'm not buying it twice.

Re:

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I'm with you on the RPGs and fighters, but I'm doubtful about FPS games. Last I heard, they're really not big sellers in Japan; even the Metroid Prime series sells a lot better Stateside than in Japan.

Something I realised last night...

[Piata]

Almost all the games I'm looking forward to for my Wii come from Nintendo.

Everyone else keeps doing shitty ports, or inane and uninteresting games like Boogie or EA Playground. I want heavily involved games for the hardcore like Metroid Prime 3, I want simple and fun group games like Wii Sports.

Why is no one but Nintendo able to produce a game worth buying on the Wii right now?

I hear developers/publishers whining about the Wii not having sufficient hardware and it being previous generation and whatever else, but I'm not interested in PS3 or Xbox; just like a lot of other gamers out there. I have money, I want to buy Wii games from more than just Nintendo. Make some!

Every day it seems more and more like publishers and developers are completely missing the point and Nintendo is just eating up the market everyone else wants to pretend isn't there.

Re:

[LWATCDR]

The third party developers got caught with their pants down. I am afraid that most of them thought that after Sony's two runaway smashes the PSONE and PS/2 that they could do no wrong. That and they knew that Microsoft would keep trowing money at the XBox until the cows come home so the 360 was a good bet. Also truth be told the 360 is actually a pretty nice system and has great development tools. Nintendo didn't look like a good place to put your development dollars. I am sure that a lot of third party de

Re:

[powerlord]

I am sure that a lot of third party developers are rushing to produce games for the Wii now.

Which of course leads to the boatload of crappy titles that either have come out, or are now scheduled to come out for the Wii.

(and the fallback position of lots of "retro" games being released to try to tide people over)

Re:

[LWATCDR]

Or if we are lucky maybe some new innovative games from some smaller studios.

Re:

[Cadallin]

By the by, it's PS2, PS/2 was a line of x86 computer by IBM from the 1980's.

One of the more rational conjectures I've heard about the 3rd party thing is that its very, very hard to compete with Nintendo. They're one of the largest concentrations of top tier talent in the industry. Hell, Miyamoto by himself is one of largest concentrations of talent in the industry, let alone all the other guys that are insanely talented. How many copies of games that Miyamoto designed have been sold? It must easily

Re:

[Mattintosh]

I just posted something similar elsewhere in this thread, but...

Just publishing a game for a Nintendo system does not mean that you're competing with Nintendo. I buy more than one game at a time when I find more than one game that suits my interests. Buying a Nintendo game and buying a 3rd party game for a Nintendo system are not mutually exclusive, therefore, nobody is competing with Nintendo by simply publishing for the Wii. They would have to be making a similar game to a Nintendo game in order to compet

-1, Pedantic

[75th Trombone]

Sony's two runaway smashes the PSONE and PS/2

PSone was a handheld version of the PlayStation with a small LCD screen. It did very well, but it was not the runaway smash you were referring to.

PS/2 is a type of connector for computer peripherals. It perhaps was a runaway smash, but it was not by Sony, and was also not what you were referring to.

You meant simply "PS1" and "PS2". HTH.

Re:

[c_forq]

PSone was actually a hardware redesign, and not portable or with an LCD screen. It was tiny, and there was a battery and screen add-ons you could get, but the PSone is simply a really small Playstation with a new look and logo (I have one, it says PSone on the top so you can't say it wasn't what Sony called it).

Re:

[75th Trombone]

Okay, I stand corrected on the specifics of what a PSone is, but I never said that PSone wasn't Sony's name for a PSone. I said that what GGP was referring to was not PSone, but all forms of the original PlayStation, the abbreviation for which is PS1, not PSone.

Re:

[Kelbear]

It's probably because nobody expected the Wii to be as good as it turned out to be. Even Nintendo hadn't planned for the Wii to be this popular, and weren't prepared for all this demand.

I'm sure that 3rd party developers have their stuff in the works, but it'll take time before it arrives. I agree, the Wii needs more 3rd party games.

Re:

[metroid composite]

What third parties care about is software sales rather than hardware, and right now 360 is doing that better than any other platform (since it seems that 360 owners buy two or three times as many games as anyone else in the same time period, and they have a larger install base to boot). It doesn't hurt that 360 dev kits are small enough (physically) to be placed at every developer's desk and have already been distributed to every studio on the planet. Don't expect third parties to shift heavily away from

Re:

[DDLKermit007]

Wow, you had me until you mentioned the dev kit is small enough to put on every developers desk as a reason devs like them (Wii devkits are smaller still I believe). Thats the last thing devs care about. It's more the high cost per dev kit devs care about. Nintendo initially was giving out Dev kits for nothin, and the price for them now is at MOST $1,750. Just for contrast, the PSP dev kit is a bit over $4,000, original PS2 Dev kit was $18,000, original Xbox was just a little under that, and current dev kit

Re:

[Applekid]

Oh man, my stomach just went on preemptive strike on that.

The only cool thing about it was two separate bags of cereal in the box. I remember being a kid and convincing my parents to buy it for me. "It's one box but TWO BAGS. That means that when the cereal is halfway finished you can open the second bag and you have fresher tasting cereal instead of the same old stale thing."

Meanwhile I ended up just opening both and mixing the two in the bowl. Heh heh heh.

Re:

[solar_blitz]

Well I'm hoping that this will encourage more studios to develop games without absolutely top-tier graphics, sound, etc. Not that I don't enjoy those kinds of games, I love them. I'm thinking about this more on the developers' level. It's very hard to develop games these days when compared to the earlier generations of game consoles, man-power wise. I'm hoping game development becomes cheaper so studios can take bigger risks in their game development and exercise more creativity in game design. If Nintendo

Other info

[lpangelrob]

This story would also be a good time to mention that the Wii continues to outsell the PS3 [punchjump.com] 7-or-8 to 1 in Japan, on a week-by-week basis.

Re:

[Krommenaas]

And that Wii software outsells PS3 software at over 25 to 1 (31 to 1 this week [vgchartz.com]).

Re:Other info, or why Japan is the Deciderer

[WillAffleckUW]

Not to mention no really good games for the PS3 ... wonder if the two are related?

Game makers could really learn from Nintendo

[c0d3h4x0r]

Nintendo's success has come about because of two things.

First, it doesn't just rush shitty games or shitty hardware to market. They treat console design and game-making like the artistic, design-centric crafts they really are.

Second, they strike exactly the right balance between features/price with their hardware, and they revise the hardware appropriatley as time goes on to ensure their offerings continue to strike the right balance at any given time (as technology advances and more/better features can be had for the same price).

In those two regards, Nintendo has been operating very much like Apple -- but doing it even better than Apple does.

It's good to see companies really take pride in what they do, execute well on it, and get rewarded by the market for it. It gives you just a little glimmer of hope that capitalism can still bring about good things.

A clear sign of Nintendo's emenent doom

[gmezero]

I think this just goes to show that Nintendo is teetering on the precipice if insignificance and failure. With this many sales, it's clear that they will quickly saturate the market and everyone will own all the Nintendo games they can possibly buy. Then we'll see the
true market situation as gamers looking to spend their hard earned money have to go out and by products from Microsoft and Sony just to be able to keep playing new games!!!

Re:

[gmezero]

BTW, in case some of you missed it... that last post was sarcasm =)

Prof. Layton and the Mysterious Village

[LKM]

Prof. Layton and the Mysterious Village looks great. I hope that'll come out over here...

Nintendo Deserves Its Recent Success...

[ElboRuum]

Shigeru Miyamoto once again states the obvious:

"A good game's a good game. If you build it, they will buy."

His competition states:

"Meh, just throw a few more clock cycles at the hardware."

The results seem... predictable.

Re:

[MeanderingMind]

class PS3 throws ClockCycles {}

class Wii throws WiiMote {}

And yet everyone thought it was risky

[patio11]

The consensus in the industry was that underpowered, gimmicky little DS strikethrough Wii was going to megaflop. Nintendo's stock price is up something like 40% since last August, and by August you had all the information you needed about the Wii's capabilities to forecast its future success *except* the sales numbers that gave proof of it. 40% was the uncertainty discount, and wow, thats a lot of uncertainty. Heck, I bought my Nintendo stock months after the Wii release and its up ~15% from then. Peopl

Re:

[iainl]

Yes, your argument rather effectively explains why Nintendo are outselling Sony so much.

Oh, wait, no it doesn't.

Re:

[painQuin]

You're almost as bad as the troll you respond to.. ok, no, you're not nearly that bad. But that was still bad. You need to tell them why he's wrong - he probably doesn't even know that Sony is also a Japanese company.

Remember, trolls live under bridges. They don't know these things.

Re:

[iainl]

You're right, of course. I suspect he (and it's nearly always a 'he') got so obsessed with justifying poor 360 sales he forgot other consoles even exist.

Mind you, Microsoft's is the only one of the latest round of TV-connected machines I own, and I've got PSP as well as my DS, so why I'm so smug I'm not sure.