Pokemon: Platinum Tops Nintendo DS Piracy List

When it comes to the top 20 selling Nintendo DS games in Japan, Pokemon: Platinum ranks number one as the most pirated game on the chart.

According to CESA, the game (and Giratina) was illegally downloaded 2,071,006 times. A far cry from the five million plus Dissidia: Final Fantasy downloads, but over two million is still a hefty figure. CESA estimates losses of 9,469 million yen ($103 million). Of course, that number doesn’t take used game sales, trading, and people who would have passed on purchasing the game unless it snowed in Bowser’s Castle.

Pokemon: Diamond was the number two most downloaded game with 1,862,899 transfers. Pokemon: Pearl, the companion game to Pokemon: Diamond, was number seven on the list with 1,441,273 downloads. Add those all together and you get 5,375,178 downloads of Pokemon: Diamond / Pearl / Platinum worth 24,575 million yen($269 million) in sales.

These are other top pirated and top selling Nintendo DS games in Japan

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies –
1,551,085 downloads worth 8,835 million yen ($97 million).

Mario Party DS –
1,470,231 downloads worth  6,722 million yen ($74 million).

New Super Mario Bros. –
1,455,577 downloads worth 6,655 million yen ($73 million).

Mario Kart –
1,447,781 downloads worth 6,619 million yen ($72 million).

Pokemon: SoulSilver –
1,129,469 worth 5,164 million yen ($56 million).

Top selling titles not targeted at core gamers were downloaded significantly less. Only 306,561 people downloaded the tenth game on the list, Tomodachi Collection. English Training, number 11, was downloaded 201,292 times. Now for a statistic that should lighten the mood, Common Sense Training was the 17th best selling Nintendo DS game, but the least pirated game on the list with only 89,667 downloads.

CESA reports a total of 19,347,668 downloads for the top twenty DS games and 86 billion yen ($941 million) in damages.