Ahahaha! D1GP is kicking GT4's tail in Japan! :eek :wow
Article courtesy of "Spriggan":
Stale GRAN TURISMO 4 sales in Japan
Via The Magic Box, the latest sales numbers from Japan have been released. Here are the top 10 games for the week of February 14-20, 2005. For entries with two numbers, the latter number represents total sales to date:
Devil May Cry 3 (PS2, Capcom) - 194,530 units
Dragon Ball Z3 (PS2, Bandai) - 90,911 / 517,807 units
Rumble Roses (PS2, Konami) - 73,935 units
D1 Grand Prix (PS2, Yuke's) - 26,286 units
Gladiator: Road to Freedom (PS2, Ertain) - 14,336 units
Gran Turismo 4 (PS2, Sony) - 12,863 / 956,680 units
Popolocrois: Pietro Ouji no Bouken (PSP, Sony) - 11,956 / 45,715 units
Catch! Touch! Yoshi! (NDS, Nintendo) - 11,591 / 120,669 units
Shinseiki Yuusha Taisen (PS2, Atlus) - 10,487 units
Everybody's Golf Portable (PSP, Sony) - 10,353 / 298,980 units
It's interesting to note that mediocre fare like Yuke's D1 GRAND PRIX, which barely received an average of 68% from Weekly Famitsu Magazine, outsold GRAN TURISMO 4 by a ratio of greater than 2:1.
Same with Konami's rather shallow (but fan service-heavy... see image below) RUMBLE ROSES, faring about the same, outselling GT4 by nearly 6x. The PSP and Nintendo DS games in positions 7, 8 and 10 are pretty much keeping pace as well.
I know that GT4's been out for a couple months now in Japan, so direct comparisons aren't really that fair. However, while nearly a million units sold (just in Japan) is nothing to sneeze at, it was in development for about 4 years, with a budget that had to have been astronomical.
Worldwide, I'm sure GT4 will make tons for Sony and Polyphony Digital, but I don't know if these numbers necessarily represent a blockbuster hit like we've seen with the DRAGON QUEST, FINAL FANTASY, and POKEMON series.
On the other hand, most companies would kill for the kinds of numbers GT4's posting.
