Channel Surfing: WiiWare/Virtual Console Sales Chart: May 2009 - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 02 July 2009 / 6,426 Views

[url=http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1355]Methodology[/url]
[url=http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=3143]February, 2009[/url]
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[url=http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=3688]April, 2009[/url]

100k+ sales	250k+ sales	500k+ sales	1M+ sales
50M+ points	100M+ points	250M+ points	500M+ points

Today we present to you the American and PAL sales for May 2009 (covering the four weeks through May 31st). Titles in bold italic were released during the tracking period.

TM	LM	Americas WiiWare Games	Publisher	Monthly	Total	Revenue
1	1	World of Goo	2D Boy	13,600	178,300	$2,674,500
2	2	My Aquarium	Hudson	12,700	188,300	$941,500
3	3	Tetris Party	Hudson	9,300	162,500	$1,950,000
4	4	My Pokemon Ranch	Nintendo	8,100	224,800	$2,248,000
5	6	Dr. Mario Online Rx	Nintendo	6,400	269,700	$2,697,000
6	8	Defend Your Castle	XGen Studios	5,600	239,400	$1,197,000
7	7	CueSports -- Pool Revolution	Hudson	5,100	58,300	$291,500
8	5	Onslaught	Hudson	5,100	33,500	$335,000
9	10	Fun! Fun! Minigolf	Shin'en Multimedia	4,800	49,000	$441,000
10	NE	*BUBBLE BOBBLE Plus!*	*Taito*	*4,700*	*4,700*	*$28,200*

TM	LM	PAL WiiWare Games	Publisher	Monthly	Total	Revenue
1	NE	*Swords & Soldiers*	*Ronimo Games*	*10,200*	*10,200*	*102,000 €*
2	2	My Aquarium	Hudson	9,600	170,200	851,000 €
3	1	Texas Hold'Em Tournament	Digital Leisure	8,500	29,700	148,500 €
4	3	World of Goo	2D Boy	7,400	75,800	1,137,000 €
5	4	Onslaught	Hudson Soft	6,600	38,500	385,000 €
6	10	My Pokemon Ranch	Nintendo	5,500	118,800	1,188,000 €
7	9	Bomberman Blast	Hudson	4,700	72,100	721,000 €
8	11	Equilibrio	DK Games	4,700	10,800	54,000 €
9	24	BIT.TRIP BEAT	Aksys Games	4,700	7,300	43,800 €
10	6	TV Show King	Gameloft	4,500	234,300	2,343,000 €

Overall, it is interesting to note that the top 10 games in PAL are pretty close in sales to the top 10 in the Americas, despite the lower userbase and connection rates there.

Bubble Bobble Plus is the only new release to crack the top 10 in the Americas (though it did so with only one week of sales) in what was an unusually dry WiiWare month for the region. World of Goo still riding high in the Americas, though it will be passed by My Aquarium in June, as well as threatened by new releases Texas Hold'Em Tournament and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Onslaught slips back a bit in the Americas but sticks around in the top 10, while the rest of the chart is pretty familiar.

Swords & Soldiers has a respectable debut in PAL, taking the top spot with about two and a half weeks on sale. There's some more re-shuffling in the PAL top 10, with BIT.TRIP BEAT and Equilibrio cracking into the top 10 in their first full month on sale, TV Show King moving down a few spots, and My Pokemon Ranch moving up a few spots.

There's a bounty of new releases not in the top 10:

Penguins & Friends - Hey! That's My Fish! was released on May 4th in the Americas and on May 22nd in PAL, never made any noise and sits at somewhere well under 1,500 in the Americas and 800 in PAL for debut sales.
Family Pirate Party was released on May 11th in the Americas and, again, never approached the rankings in any week, so has sold through somewhere less than 1,200 in its launch month.
Crystal Defenders R2 was released on May 18th in the Americas and on May 22nd in PAL. It was approximately 22nd for the month in the Americas, with 2,300 sales in two weeks. In PAL the game fell outside the top 20 with just 1,100 sales in about a week and a half.
Silver Star Chess was released on May 18th in the Americas and actually outperformed Crystal Defenders R2 there, placing 18th for the month with roughly 2,700 sales in its two weeks.
Adventure Island: The Beginning was released on May 25th in the Americas, and it's 2,900 sales in its first week was good enough for 17th place for the month.
Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure was released on May 8th in PAL, and with its availability for all but a few days in the month it managed 15th place with about 3,300 sales.
Fish'em All released on May 29th in PAL, and in its first few days on sale had approximately 500 sales.

TM	LM	Americas Virtual Console Games	Platform	Publisher	Monthly	Total	Revenue
1	1	Super Mario Bros. 3	NES	Nintendo	30,600	1,250,100	$6,250,500
2	2	Super Mario Bros.	NES	Nintendo	17,500	1,119,900	$5,599,500
3	NE	*Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, the*	*N64*	*Nintendo*	*16,700*	*16,700*	*$167,000*
4	3	Super Mario World	SNES	Nintendo	10,400	752,000	$6,016,000
5	6	Punch Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream	NES	Nintendo	9,600	533,900	$2,669,500
6	5	Super Mario Bros. 2	NES	Nintendo	9,300	559,400	$2,797,000
7	4	Super Punch-Out!!	SNES	Nintendo	8,800	23,800	$190,400
8	7	Legend of Zelda, the	NES	Nintendo	8,300	513,200	$2,566,000
9	8	Super Mario 64	N64	Nintendo	7,700	609,200	$6,092,000
10	10	Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the	N64	Nintendo	7,300	476,500	$4,765,000

TM	LM	PAL Virtual Console Games	Platform	Publisher	Monthly	Total	Revenue
1	2	Super Mario Bros. 3	NES	Nintendo	11,400	512,600	2,563,000 €
2	1	The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask	N64	Nintendo	9,500	33,500	335,000 €
3	3	Super Mario Bros.	NES	Nintendo	8,300	437,000	2,185,000 €
4	4	Super Mario World	SNES	Nintendo	6,500	367,600	2,940,800 €
5	5	Sonic the Hedgehog	MS	Sega	6,000	111,500	557,500 €
6	7	Super Mario 64	N64	Nintendo	5,400	350,300	3,503,000 €
7	6	The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time	N64	Nintendo	5,300	291,800	2,918,000 €
8	8	Mario Kart 64	N64	Nintendo	4,100	352,000	3,520,000 €
9	9	Super Mario Bros. 2	NES	Nintendo	3,600	218,900	1,094,500 €
10	11	Alex Kidd in Miracle World	MS	Sega	3,200	109,300	546,500 €

Unlike with WiiWare, the Virtual Console sales are dominated by the Americas, with double sales in the top 10, far outweighing the advantage in install base - likely due to a higher internet connection rate and a greater market share of Nintendo's prior consoles in the Americas than in PAL.

Super Mario Bros. 3 continues to rule both charts, though Majora's Mask at least adds a fresh face to the familiar mix. It took third place in the Americas with two weeks of sales and held steady at second place in PAL in its second month after a strong launch month where it was the #1 Virtual Console game in PAL.

With the exception of Majora's Mask, all of the other new releases fell outside the top 10 in each region:

Tower Toppler for the Commodore 64, Galaxy Force II for the Genesis, and Clay Fighter for the Genesis all released in the Americas, and all failed to make any impact in the top 20 weekly rankings. While that just means they were each somewhere less than 800 sales a week, all were likely far lower than that.
Likewise, Fantasy Zone II for the Master System, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure for the Genesis, and Space Harrier for the Virtual Console Arcade all released in PAL and none had much impact. Pitfall was 27th for the month with 1,300 sales in two and a half weeks, while Space Harrier had approximately 800 sales in four days. Fantasy Zone II never really got anywhere, with somewhere less than 1,000 sales for the month despite being available for all but a few days.

My apologies for the late charts this month, as E3 left all operations pretty far behind. The charts for June should be available shortly - possibly with Japan data this time. Thanks to TWRoO, Michael, and Okr for helping with the PAL data, and to Manuelf for helping with the Latin American data. As always, if you want to help collect Nintendo Channel data, send TWRoO a PM if you have a PAL Wii and myself a PM if you have an American or Japanese Wii.

The sneak peek for June sales - Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is huge in both regions, taking the #1 spot for the month in the Americas and possibly PAL as well. The surprising figure is Texas Hold'Em Tournament, which is on track to sell close to 20,000 in the Americas in the five weeks of June.

Keith Jackson
kjackson@vgchartz.com

18 Comments

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DKII (on 05 July 2009)

512 MB internal memory, but you can now play directly off of SD cards as well (up to 32GB I think).

zaMy (on 04 July 2009)

How many gigs are in a Wii?

dedis GR (on 03 July 2009)

good job...

angrypoolman (on 02 July 2009)

wheres a link to the past? =[

TWRoO (on 02 July 2009)

Texas is holding up very well in PAL and looks like it will for the future (especially Australia where it is still number 1) probably again the price thing.... when people get a 2000 Wii points card I imagine it's a choice of four 500 point games or two at 1000 points usually.... four games just seems better value.

Smash Bros also had a good debut, but not up to what Majora's Mask managed by the looks of it.

moondeep (on 02 July 2009)

Swords & Soldiers is phenomenol. I would've paid $30 if it were on a disk. Love it...

Also, I would ike to recommend Neves Plus and Bubble Bobble plus.

DOLBYdigital (on 02 July 2009)

SWORDS & SOLDIERS is worth triple the asking price. Best wiiware game next to world of goo! Go buy it if you haven't already!

Bit.Trip Beat is also very excellent for people who like old school shooters or pong or chip tune music or just a solid music game. Its tons of fun

DKII (on 02 July 2009)

For the most part, price is king. My Aquarium is an interesting $5 screensaver, and Sonic for the Master System is cheaper than for the Genesis, and the graphics for both suck compared to modern standards anyway, so why not get the cheap one?

matty (on 02 July 2009)

What?! People actually like Sonic on the Master System?!

cavalcanti.luiz (on 02 July 2009)

Man, I'll probably never understand the "My Aquarium" sales performance

woopah (on 02 July 2009)

buy swords and soldiers! its such an awesome game

i think the wii are wiiware really helped S&S so i hope it helps NyxQuest

famousringo (on 02 July 2009)

Looks like it's getting so that only a very hyped release like Swords and Soldiers can dislodge the favourites.

2D Boy is so stinking rich at this point, and they just keep getting richer.