What can I say, the Japanese just enjoy gaming in a different light than we do. After looking at the ranks from that country, I was shocked to see that Halo 2 was not topping the charts there as well.

Perhaps they just enjoy a good RPG more than blowing up their friends in the pale light of the TV set on a Saturday night. Having exposure to a bigger and perhaps even better selection of games might also play a part for them as well.

Sales of the top 100 titles totaled 693,954, 107.66% of last week’s total and 76.75% of the weekly average. The market has recovered to some extent, driven largely by “Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories” and “Magnacarta.” Nonetheless, these two titles are the sole strong performers, and neither previous nor new titles have grown in sales.

Eleven new titles made the ranking, accounting for 57.93% of the market. “Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories” placed first, selling about 203,000 in total. The previous version, “Kingdom Hearts,” was available only in PS2 (which recorded approximately 465,000 in sales in the first week), but “Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories” comes in GBA. One of the reasons why sales declined is that the different platform targets a different segment of the market. Meanwhile, “Magnacarta,” ranked second, is an imported title which has been adapted from a Korean PC game to suit the Japanese market. The future may see an increase in titles coming from the Republic of Korea, in addition to the US and Europe.