This Week In Sales: The 3rd Birthday Overdives Into #6

The week of December 20th – 26th demonstrated the holiday effect in full force, causing a bunch of long-tailed sellers to actually increase in sales over the previous week. Konami’s Magician’s Quest: The Merchant’s Store of Sorcery was one such title, which nearly doubled its sales over the week prior.

We’ve been pointing Magician’s Quest out in every recent sales chart because, in a month dominated by popular games, it’s managed to hold its own and seek out its target audience, which is no mean feat, considering its competition. Incidentally, the game was developed by the newly-established LovePlus Productions.

One game that didn’t do as well as one might have hoped, however, was The 3rd Birthday. Beaten soundly by Namco Bandai’s AKB 1/48 Fall In Love With An Idol and Nintendo’s dominant holiday sellers, Aya overdove right down into sixth place upon debut. Square clearly understood the risks associated with the title, but that doesn’t change how it did.

Speaking of tears…Capcom are probably shedding tears of joy right about now. Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, in less than a month, has nearly achieved its target sales of 3.6 million, and doesn’t look like it’s going to stop selling anytime soon.

The top-20 list for the week was as follows:

Sales data acquired from Japanese sales tracker Media-Create.