Monday, 18 August 2008

Tales of Vesperia Works Wonder for Xbox 360

Japan sales for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 increased more than 400 percent on the release of Namco Bandai's Tales of Vesperia in the latest retail data.

Xbox 360 sold 24,962 units in the week of Aug. 4 to 10, according to data from Media Create. In contrast the PlayStation 3 sold 9,673 units and Nintendo's Wii sold 38,506 units, Media Create said. The Nintendo DS and PSP continued their handheld domination with 60,434 and 58,501 units sold. The company receives actual sales data from around 3,000 stores across Japan and uses that to estimate nationwide sales.

The sudden surge in Xbox 360’s sale is probably linked to the release of Tales of Vesperia on the Xbox 360, which sold 108,000 units, making it the fourth best-selling title on all platforms for the week. Previous weeks had seen Xbox 360 slowly climb from 2,000 units to the 5,000 mark.

Tales of Vesperia is the latest installment in Bandai Namco's long-running "Tales of" series of video games and was launched in Japan on August 7. The game will go on sale in North America on August 26 and in Europe in the first half of 2009.