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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





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next 50 comments

52 comments | showing # 1 to 50

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

Whose played with a japanese 12 year old?

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

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
pedrovay2003's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 01:58
pedrovay2003
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:06
Im OK
Man, there must be more 95 year old Japanese grandmothers playing Halo 3 than I thought.
Im OK's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:08
Im OK
Wow, that link should have been this.

Copy/paste, you have failed me for the last time!
Im OK's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:10
Im OK
Oh well, at least it wasn't a pr0n link or something. ¬_¬
UNDERSTAR's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:11
UNDERSTAR
Man those numbers are too good to be true and so is this ganja Im rocking out!!
LethalHairdo's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:16
LethalHairdo
Holy...shit...?
Upgrayedd's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:17
Upgrayedd
A western game selling well in Japan. Congrats!
ajaxender's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:18
ajaxender
you wrote that haiku in sparrows blood? you bastard! Unless you are actually a prophet.
Necros's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:18
Necros
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:34
jgrim
That would be very refreshing, actually.
pedrovay2003's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:40
pedrovay2003
Thank you. You have made this pedantic bastard very happy.
catsithx's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 02:59
catsithx
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 03:04
tkyy
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 03:07
Buster
gorilla: they sound the same as american 12 year olds, but they're polite
DanGale's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 03:10
DanGale
Wow, I just realised there's no Wii games in the top ten.
Knives's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 03:30
Knives
The end is near!!!

(also pic caption ruled)
Lord_Satorious's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 03:36
Lord_Satorious
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 04:25
hollywooda
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 04:52
somesthetic
theres only 4 DS games on that list!

thats impossible!
JayTapp's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 06:33
JayTapp
@ArrestedDeveloper hehe nice one!
BluDesign's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 07:00
BluDesign
Wii would like to play Halo 3.
brainderailment's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 07:06
brainderailment
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 07:15
DOOM
AWESOME!!!
Made in the U.S.A.!!!
MaxVest's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 07:41
MaxVest
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 07:48
XeroxMe
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 07:54
Professor Pew
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 08:05
gamesronlygames
its only for one week. It will be back to the crazy normal next week.
galagabug 's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 08:18
galagabug
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 08:43
ToiletDuck
I call photoshopped.
Toneman's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 08:45
Toneman
Japan wins the Halos.
Huangism's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 08:51
Huangism
so sad that halo 3, a fps is the number 1 game
thumbs down to all fps
Snaileb 's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 08:58
Snaileb
Good news? Bad news? I dont know..
SourGr8pes's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 09:08
SourGr8pes
@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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 09:27
Hoygeit
So... confused...
MechaMonkey's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 09:32
MechaMonkey
This is the way the world ends...
Mister Disco's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 09:39
Mister Disco
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 09:49
Cheeburga
Dividing by zero!
Zanch's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 10:09
Zanch
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 10:26
FuriousGeorge
well yea everyone buying a wii was buying halo3....
Stringbean's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 10:37
Stringbean
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 11:09
dprime
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 12:43
jerrt
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 13:03
Merumeru
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 13:45
galagabug
@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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 14:21
Deathsaw
This means the end of the planet. This might mean a Japanese game will top charts here. IMPOSSIBLE!
Lord_Satorious's Avatar - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 14:32
Lord_Satorious
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 - Comment posted on 10/04/2007 16:38
yaisuah
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.
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