Surprise? Well not really but the difference is amazing.

A Japanese gaming blog that tracks daily sales data has released a list of the top publishers in Japan (via Hachimaki) based on units sold through the end of October. Rather than a Top 10 or 20 list, the ranking includes all publishers who sold more than 100,000 units.

The number one company, by a landslide, is Nintendo. With two months remaining in the year, Nintendo has already sold nearly 13 million games in Japan, mostly for the DS (56% vs 44% for the Wii). That's more than the next three companies on the list combined.

1. Nintendo, 12,899
2. Square Enix, 4,642
3. Namco Bandai, 3,933
4. Konami, 3,237
5. Capcom, 2,823
6. Sega, 2,109
7. Level Five, 1,087
8. Koei Tecmo, 918
9. Sony, 895
10. Marvelous Entertainment, 358
11. Spike, 308
12. Hudson, 287
13. Take Two Interactive, 278
14. EA, 220
15. Atlus, 206
16. Idea Factory, 200
17. Nihon Falcom, 172
18. D3 Publisher, 160
19. Microsoft, 130
20. Arc System Works, 115
21. Alchemist, 110
22. Gust, 108
23. Rocket Company, 106
24. 5pb, 100

I imagine level 5 going up. 

Also 12 million, I wonder how much of that was just Pokemon!

capcom is about to skyrocket

Double what it has at least. 

VGC shows much bigger numbers so I went and looked at the blog. (with the help of google translate)

It looks like the vast majority of differences come from the fact that VGC tracks past the top 50 while this blog must be using Famitsu or Mediacreate top 50 weekly sales.

VGC numbers can be found on the right - http://www.vgchartz.com/yearly.php?reg=Japan

Why?

they're going hunting...

monster hunting

The mega-monter hit Monter Hunter for PSP. It has more pre-orders than Pokémon Black/White combining by now if I'm not mistaken.

@Both above posts:
Thanks...I had no idea but yeah Monster Hunter is always big in Japan.

The blog's numbers are based on Media Create's weekly top 50.