Man, this is a lot worse than I would have ever thought.

Japan saving for DQ9, confirmed?

The lowest week of Wii sales in 2008 was 22k, almost twice as much as 13k. And we aren't even in the slowest period of the year yet. I think these figures are troubling.

I agree. This is far worse than I would have thought.

Well we had 22k sales during golden week, hardly surprising sales drop by 50% or more afterwards....

And some of us have been saying since February that most likely Wii will have a week bellow 10k this year in Japan..

NO, home consoles are low in japan. but i dont think the can live in their own "handled fantasy world" forever.look at the jrpgs for example, they are dyng.

@jonnhytesta

im pretty sure if japan wasnt in such deep depression those numbers would not be that low

The second half of the year has more content for Wii than last year by a country mile though (Wii Sports Resort will still be new, Monster Hunter 3, Pikmin 3, Mario & Sonic, Tales, and whatever else...trumps Wii Music and Animal Crossing and Taiko and Joysound by a long shot) so if it is to drop below 10k a week I would expect it before Wii Sports Resort which is theoretically as little as two weeks away, and within six weeks. There is probably just enough with Arc Rise Fantasia and Takt of Magic to prevent Wii from dipping below 10k in a week.

Whats interesting to me is that Wii and PS3/360 are not following the same seasonal trends as in the west, where the March to April transition showed a decline in weekly sales rates of 30-35% for all three systems. In the March 21 week you had PS3/360 at 30k in Japan, 8 weeks later they are 40% of that value. Wii was at 19k that same week, and now 8 weeks later is at 13k, which is 70% of the March 21 week value. The cataologue of Wii titles just seems to hold it up higher even when the PS3/360 get a good run of big games.

Shin Sangoku Musou Empires 5 is the only PS3 game in the short term (~next month or so) which looks like it can do 50k+ week one so I don't really think we're going to see much change in the console market for a while now, as Wii Sports Resort is less than six weeks away and should hold Wii up at least somewhat (even if its only at 18k/week vs. 10k/week in July because of it) until Monster Hunter 3 debuts.

Another thing to watch is if Microsoft will get another big wave of software.

The Japan is no game, no game at all

Didn't somebody predict that the Wii would drop below 10k a week and everyone laughed in his face?

Japan is Games!