Tales of Vesperia cracks top ten in Japan software sales

by Xav de Matos { Aug 15th 2008 at 12:00PM }

It takes a special kind of game to crack the Top Ten in Japan ... if that game is for the Xbox 360, that is. Luckily for Microsoft a special kind of game recently hit the market in the Far East that has exploded in popularity. Tales of Vesperia, part of the classic Tales series, cracked the Top Ten titles sold for the week ending August 10 in Japan at number four. Could this spell a significant change for Microsoft's efforts in the Land of the Rising Run?

Ha! Good one. No, seriously. This will sell a few more units before people remember they don't care about the Xbox 360 ... you know, until another RPG exclusive drops in their lap. At 108,000 units sold in its debut week, Tales of Vesperia is the fastest selling title in the history of the Xbox 360.

Jump in for the Top Ten Sales chart from Japan.

01. Phantasy Star Universe Portable (Sega, PSP) 148,000 / 490,000
02. Fire Emblem (Nintendo, DS) 145,000 / NEW
03. Rhythm Heaven Gold (Nintendo, DS) - 130,000 / 343,000
04. Tales of Vesperia (Namco Bandai, Xbox 360) - 108,000 / NEW
05. Dragon Quest V (Square Enix, DS) - 73,000 / 1,019,000
06. Sangokushi Taisen Ten (Sega, DS) - 33,000 / NEW
07. Summon Night 2 (Namco Bandai, DS) - 30,000 / NEW
08. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 27,000 / 2,470,000
09. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) 23,000 / 1,656,000
10. Soul Calibur 4 (Namco Bandai, PS3) 23,000 / 97,000

Tags: bandai-namco, japan, namco-bandai, tales-of-vesperia

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jonah Falcon @ Aug 15th 2008 12:03PM

I'm intrigued with Tales of Vesperia. I need to see what makes it so hot in Japan (aside from being Square-Enix.)

Xav de Matos @ Aug 15th 2008 12:07PM

It's actually Namco Bandai

Reppy @ Aug 15th 2008 12:27PM

It's Bandai Namco, Not Square Enix.

Jonah Falcon @ Aug 15th 2008 12:38PM

OK, Namco, then. Still am curious.

psychedelicpaintbrush @ Aug 15th 2008 12:43PM

heh, yeah, namco bandai... but seriously, the Tales series is pretty good and it goes all the way back to the snes. If you're impressed by the game when you pick it up you should look into it's predecessors.

danny. @ Aug 15th 2008 12:09PM

That's good to see. This won't be a day one for me, but with all the love I have for Tales of Symphonia I'm sure I'll get it before too long.

Matt @ Aug 15th 2008 12:38PM

I dunno. There are quite a few JRPG's coming out for the 360 this fall, three of which are Squre Enix offerings alone. I would love to see the 360 get a nice run.

Jonah Falcon @ Aug 15th 2008 12:49PM

Square loves the sales of 360 games in America. The success of Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata, and Lost Odyssey in the States is one of the pathways into Japan. They see dollar signs here, and when 150K is an awesome week in Japan, 360 games - even bad ones - usually sell 300K or more, and blockbusters 1M and more.

The_Punisher @ Aug 15th 2008 1:08PM

Uh.....you call LO, BD, and ES sales success?

LMAO!

I'm just surprised Mistwalker hasn't shut down. Which kinda saddens me, the world needs more games like Lost Odyssey :(

Fenix @ Aug 15th 2008 12:53PM

360 sales shat on PS3 last week because of the game too! Somewhat makes up for the NPD last month and this was only one week!

Nintendo DS - 60,434
PSP - 58,501
Wii - 38,506
Xbox 360 - 24,962
PlayStation 3 - 9,673
PlayStation 2 - 8,503

Fenix @ Aug 15th 2008 12:57PM

15000+ is a nice margin, maybe it outsells it for the whole month in Japan...

Now THAT would be something!

WTangoFoxtrot @ Aug 15th 2008 1:04PM

yea i hope the trend continues on for the whole month. i think MS's strategy in Japan is slowly working, ive slowly seen an increase in 360 sales every month and these spikes due to exclusive releases are gonna get more frequent.

joey @ Aug 15th 2008 1:03PM

Guess software can still moves hardware.
unless it's Wii

Reaper0fAnguish @ Aug 15th 2008 1:13PM

tales of vesperia is pretty fun, check out the demo on live if you need convincing.

oh and vesperia was bundled with 360 so that gave it a boost too, here's hoping the sales keep growing.

Tony @ Aug 15th 2008 1:15PM

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the other RPGs on the horizon. The 360 is still way behind there, but I'm glad MS is making more of an effort.

Baligouxji @ Aug 15th 2008 6:04PM

Well LO was the game that really made me want to buy a 360, so maybe ToV will have a similar effect on a hand full of people.

I doubt the 360 will ever see consitantly good numbers in Japan, but I do suspect... at least up until next year, it'll do a couple thousand better than it ususally does every week in japan. It's improving, which is good for MS and their next console. The 360's MS's gate way drug so to speak.