games  anime  |  toys
Destructoid is gaming news, community, videos, and sometimes love. Take the tour or jump in with Facebook:

 


Halo 3 sales signal end of Japanese Empire photo

After almost 5,000 years of civilized culture (preceded by 25,000 years of hunter-gatherer triflings), the island of Nihon-koku -- 'Japan' to you lazy round-eyes -- may soon sink into the ocean or be horribly destroyed by some kind of hellish firestorm.

Recent Japanese sales records are out and in accordance with ancient harbingers of doom prophecy, Halo 3 has topped a Pokémon title for the highest selling game in all of Japan.

To quote a completely fictional prophetic haiku:

When Microsoft tops
Nintendo's tiny creatures,
Nippon shall perish.

Considering the entire thing was written in the blood of a sparrow, you sorta have to believe it, y'know? 

Hit the jump for the week's sales data (written in the blood of Mark from Accounting).

[Via Game|Life

[UPDATE: Haiku made even less historically accurate to appease you pedantic bastards.] 

Courtesy of NeoGAF:

01./--. [360] Halo 3 - 59,000 / NEW
02./03. [DS] Pokemon Fushigi no Dungeon: Toki - 55,000 / 440,000
03./01. [PSP] Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII - 54,000 / 649,000
04./--. [DS] Tamagotchi Petit Petit Omisecchi Minasankyu! - 54,000 / NEW
05./04. [DS] Pokemon Fushigi no Dungeon: Yami - 46,000 / 389,000
06./--. [PS2] Bleach Blade Battlers 2nd - 31,000 / NEW
07./--. [DS] English Test 2 - 28,000 / NEW
08./--. [PSP] Yugioh Duel Monsters GX - 28,000 / NEW
09./--. [PS3] Oblivion - 27,000 / NEW
10./02. [PSP] Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops+ - 25,000 / 119,000


Continue: More Xbox 360 stories





prev
next 50 comments

52 comments | showing # 1 to 50

topgeargorilla's Avatar
topgeargorilla at 10/04/2007 01:56
i wanna know what racial/homophobic slurs they get to use.

Whose played with a japanese 12 year old?

lemmie know!
SchickOuttaShape's Avatar
SchickOuttaShape at 10/04/2007 01:57
but the d-d-d-dead sea scrolls said....N-NO!!! NO!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
pedrovay2003's Avatar
pedrovay2003 at 10/04/2007 01:58
Wow, that's kinda crazy. Never expected even Halo 3 to beat Nintendo's sales in Japan.

And isn't the word "our" technically 2 syllables, therefore making that haiku invalid? Sorry, just nitpicking.
Im OK's Avatar
Im OK at 10/04/2007 02:06
Man, there must be more 95 year old Japanese grandmothers playing Halo 3 than I thought.
Im OK's Avatar
Im OK at 10/04/2007 02:08
Wow, that link should have been this.

Copy/paste, you have failed me for the last time!
Im OK's Avatar
Im OK at 10/04/2007 02:10
Oh well, at least it wasn't a pr0n link or something. ¬_¬
UNDERSTAR's Avatar
UNDERSTAR at 10/04/2007 02:11
Man those numbers are too good to be true and so is this ganja Im rocking out!!
LethalHairdo's Avatar
LethalHairdo at 10/04/2007 02:16
Holy...shit...?
Upgrayedd's Avatar
Upgrayedd at 10/04/2007 02:17
A western game selling well in Japan. Congrats!
ajaxender's Avatar
ajaxender at 10/04/2007 02:18
you wrote that haiku in sparrows blood? you bastard! Unless you are actually a prophet.
Necros's Avatar
Necros at 10/04/2007 02:18
It's kinda impressive, but when you look at the numbers, 59,000 isn't that much, especially considering no other big games came out this week. The Pokemon and FFVII games were out before, so those definitely aren't launch week numbers.
jgrim's Avatar
jgrim at 10/04/2007 02:34
That would be very refreshing, actually.
pedrovay2003's Avatar
pedrovay2003 at 10/04/2007 02:40
Thank you. You have made this pedantic bastard very happy.
catsithx's Avatar
catsithx at 10/04/2007 02:59
and next week halo 3 willl be in tenth place. It's only one weeks sales when it does it for 2 weeks then i'll be impress
tkyy's Avatar
tkyy at 10/04/2007 03:04
look at the numbers.
you don't usually rank 1st having 50000 games sold

halo 3 wins technically but that doesn't imply western game is evading japan, and the japanese are still doing facial expressions to their ds cam.
Buster's Avatar
Buster at 10/04/2007 03:07
gorilla: they sound the same as american 12 year olds, but they're polite
DanGale's Avatar
DanGale at 10/04/2007 03:10
Wow, I just realised there's no Wii games in the top ten.
ArrestedDeveloper's Avatar
ArrestedDeveloper at 10/04/2007 03:13
Knives's Avatar
Knives at 10/04/2007 03:30
The end is near!!!

(also pic caption ruled)
Lord_Satorious's Avatar
Lord_Satorious at 10/04/2007 03:36
Is anyone else more surprised that _three_ PSP games are in the top ten? Seriously, portable gaming over in Japan is just ridiculous. A few generations from now, Nintendo won't even make a home console, they'll be handheld only.
hollywooda's Avatar
hollywooda at 10/04/2007 04:25
I'm quite upset by this, i like Halo & thought Japan had absolutly no fucking taste what so ever, which now mean i cant like Halo anymore..... why cant they just stick to there own games about raping school girls & fluffy stupid animal things that you have to collect!?!?
somesthetic's Avatar
somesthetic at 10/04/2007 04:52
theres only 4 DS games on that list!

thats impossible!
JayTapp's Avatar
JayTapp at 10/04/2007 06:33
@ArrestedDeveloper hehe nice one!
BluDesign's Avatar
BluDesign at 10/04/2007 07:00
Wii would like to play Halo 3.
brainderailment's Avatar
brainderailment at 10/04/2007 07:06
I would think that FFVII for the PSP would've stayed pretty high, considering they just sold 600,000 slim psps in 2 weeks.
DOOM's Avatar
DOOM at 10/04/2007 07:15
AWESOME!!!
Made in the U.S.A.!!!
MaxVest's Avatar
MaxVest at 10/04/2007 07:41
If the Japanese learn to combine the two nigh-identical versions of Pokemon to get a power level of over 100,000!!!! they might just be able to save Neo Tokyo.
XeroxMe's Avatar
XeroxMe at 10/04/2007 07:48
Isn't 59k more than a tenth of their user base in Japan? This is pretty impressive considering Japanese gamers don't like FPS games too. Go Team USA!
Professor Pew's Avatar
Professor Pew at 10/04/2007 07:54
Wow, american-japanese culture wars. Gogogogo!
For some reason I read that picture as "the worst episode of Puppet babies", what the hell?
gamesronlygames's Avatar
gamesronlygames at 10/04/2007 08:05
its only for one week. It will be back to the crazy normal next week.
galagabug 's Avatar
galagabug at 10/04/2007 08:18
hmmmm.. if the japanese start supporting the FPS, i'd love to see some of the japanese developers take on the genre.
ToiletDuck's Avatar
ToiletDuck at 10/04/2007 08:43
I call photoshopped.
Toneman's Avatar
Toneman at 10/04/2007 08:45
Japan wins the Halos.
Huangism's Avatar
Huangism at 10/04/2007 08:51
so sad that halo 3, a fps is the number 1 game
thumbs down to all fps
Snaileb 's Avatar
Snaileb at 10/04/2007 08:58
Good news? Bad news? I dont know..
SourGr8pes's Avatar
SourGr8pes at 10/04/2007 09:08
@Galaga
"hmmmm.. if the japanese start supporting the FPS, i'd love to see some of the japanese developers take on the genre."

They did... It was called Dirge of Cerberus... We all wept silently.
Hoygeit's Avatar
Hoygeit at 10/04/2007 09:27
So... confused...
MechaMonkey's Avatar
MechaMonkey at 10/04/2007 09:32
This is the way the world ends...
Mister Disco's Avatar
Mister Disco at 10/04/2007 09:39
SourGr8pes - Actually Dirge was a 3rd person shooter, not a first person shooter. In addition, that's not the only 3rd person shooter that's come from Japan. There have been quite a few actually. Lost Planet comes to mind, for example.
Cheeburga's Avatar
Cheeburga at 10/04/2007 09:49
Dividing by zero!
Zanch's Avatar
Zanch at 10/04/2007 10:09
Pretty impressive. Too bad all it really means for 360 is a temporary hardware sales spike before the general Japanese populous goes back to collectively ignoring the 360 and most things American.
FuriousGeorge's Avatar
FuriousGeorge at 10/04/2007 10:26
well yea everyone buying a wii was buying halo3....
Stringbean's Avatar
Stringbean at 10/04/2007 10:37
I missed the original haiku, but I do believe "our" is still considered one syllable. It's like "house". They only count as one beat and, therefore, one syllable. But, I may be wrong as I am tone death and barely got a "B" in my poetry performance class. God, now I have made myself sound like the loser I am in real life.
dprime's Avatar
dprime at 10/04/2007 11:09
I broke out laughing for a solid minute in responce to this post.

But I have to add that it's not that big a deal. I mean, it's Halo's opening week. Any pokemon game would rape it if they were on a level playing field.

Further, I'm pretty sure tha Japanese "empire" was done with in the 40s. Oh wait, are you talking about the gaming empire? =P
jerrt's Avatar
jerrt at 10/04/2007 12:43
i love the caption.

this is scary stuff indeed. i'm sure microsoft will get a big head about themselves and drop the ball.
Merumeru's Avatar
Merumeru at 10/04/2007 13:03
guess even japan gives somewhat of a damn XD im pretty sure that its the highest number the game is gunna see from there though

now, make it a japanese maid shooter and you got yourself a hot seller XD
galagabug 's Avatar
galagabug at 10/04/2007 13:45
@mister disco - wasn't lost planet 3rd person too?

either way, it was a jap. shooter that didn't suck. the only jap made FPS i can think of is coded arms, and it DID suck.
Deathsaw's Avatar
Deathsaw at 10/04/2007 14:21
This means the end of the planet. This might mean a Japanese game will top charts here. IMPOSSIBLE!
Lord_Satorious's Avatar
Lord_Satorious at 10/04/2007 14:32
Hey guess what people, the Japanese don't have any taste in games either. Just look at that list. Halo 3; not one but TWO Pokemon games; a few shitty anime games; fricken' Tamagotchi... oh wow, Oblivion for the PlayStation 3, that's unexpected; and of course, a Final Fantasy and a Metal Gear game. It wouldn't be Japan if those weren't on the list.

And yes, Japan does make shooters, they just happen to be in third person. Japan doesn't do first person, something I applaud, as I think Halo would have been a better game if Bungie had stuck with the third person view. Bioshock, on the other hand, definitely better in first person.
yaisuah's Avatar
yaisuah at 10/04/2007 16:38
If these sales stats are actually real(I would never in my life just trust some guy on a forum posting sales stats), its obvious that MS paid cash money to all other developers not to release any big games the week Halo 3 came out. If it had come out the previous week against Crisis Core it would have been outsold 2 to 1. It's only #1 cuz there was no other game worth buying that week, and compared to the previous weeks #1 it's pretty weak, and sales will obviously plummet very quickly. Also stats like this usually only indicate the amount purchased by stores to have for sale, not the amount actually bought. It would be a lot more interesting to see a real number of actual purchases.
prev next 50 comments

Comment with Facebook





Click connect and comment instantly!

Comment with Dtoid





New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds

Comments policy

Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?

Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!

 
New on Destructoid.TV play all videos

Loading
Loading Destructoid Videos




    Win this!
    We're giving away an Xbox 360, Modern Warfare 2 & more!



    Dtoid Twitter    Got news?   tips@destructoid.com

    Reviews & Previews
    Mahjongg Artifacts 2 review
    Dragon Age: Origins review
    Lost Winds: The Winter of the Melodias review
    Osmos review
    Space Invaders Extreme 2 review
    Half-Minute Hero review
    JU-ON: The Grudge review
    Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble review
    Thexder Neo review
    Domino Rally review
    more reviews
    PS3's 256-player MAG
    Rooms The Main Building
    Skate 3
    Hudson's bringing back the Bonk
    James Cameron's Avatar
    Bomberman Battlefest
    Calling
    Bad Company 2's multiplayer
    Partying like it's 1959 in BioShock 2's multiplayer
    BioShock 2 through the eyes of Big Daddy
    more previews


    - The Dtoid Army is 49679 strong -

    Showing Cblogs with 3+ faps   show all

    Call for entries: do the wrong thing

    New to Dtoid? Read the survival guide




     Originals
    Jim Sterling: How to respond to a videogame review





















    More Destructoid Originals




     Popular now more






















    Team Destructoid   tips@destructoid.com
    Nick Chester
    Editor-in-Chief
    Niero
    Founder, publisher
    Jim Sterling
    Reviews Editor
    Hamza Aziz
    Community Manager
    Dale North
    News Editor
    Rey Gutierrez
    Video editor & director
    Anthony Burch
    Features Editor
    Colette Bennett
    Tom Fronczak Brad Nicholson
    Ashley Davis Ben Perlee
    Conrad
    Zimmerman
    Chad Concelmo
    Jonathan Holmes Jonathan Ross
    Brad Rice Jordan Devore
    Will Maddock Matthew Razak
    Dyson Joseph Leray
    Topher Cantler Samit Sarkar
         
      Will Maddock
    Adam Dork
    Daniel Lingen
    Joe Burling
    Mikey
    Stella Wong




     

     
      get involved

    register or login
    post a blog
    post a forum
    enter a contest
    contribute a news tip
    suggest a feature
    be a guest editor
    support

    new member's guide
    login assistance
    tech support
    report abuse
    email our editors
    read our dev blog
    nuclear crisis?
    keep in touch

    RSS feed
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Myspace
    Flickr
    Game nights
    Meetup+play online
    seriously

    about Destructoid
    advertising
    terms of use
    privacy policy
    jobs at MM
    buy our crap
    our network

    Tomopop
    Japanator
    Despingation?




    Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press
    living the dream since March 16, 2006