Want to know why the DS is sold out in Japan? Just take a look at the country's software rankings from December 26th to January 1st. Nine, count 'em, nine, of the top 15 games are DS titles. The new DS brain trainer, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Mario Kart take the first three spots, respectively. The old DS brain trainer (by old, I mean it was released last spring) is number five. Other hot titles include Mario & Luigi RPG2 (#7), another brain game Yawaraka Atama Juku (#8), Tamagotchi no Puchi Puchi Omisecchi (#9), some Pokemon game (#10) and the mini-game buffet title Dare Demo Asobi Taizen (#15).

Dead or Alive 4 didn't crack the top ten, selling something like 60,000 copies and coming in at #13. Disappointing, sure, but the game has sold better than any other Xbox title in Japan. Ever. Personally, I *heart* DoA 4, and think the game is the 360's first truly enjoyable experience. Think Crecente agrees with me on that. If there's anything to be learned from the DS sell-out, it's that folks will shell out and buy the system... as long as there's exceptional software there. People buy systems to play games on, not games to play systems on.

Software Rankings [M-Create]

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