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Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 6/2-6/8
We're crying for Namco Bandai's Tears of 99 right now, as the game debuted in the twenty-third spot this week. We guess Japanese gamers just didn't feel like being bummed out, and therefore avoided buying this original title. Sad, indeed.The rest of DS software didn't do so hot, either. Detective game Misa Yamamura Suspense premiered in fifth, and Beautiful Letter Training continues to sell incredibly well for a nongame about calligraphy, but otherwise sales were a disappointment. Front Mission 2089 and Endless Frontier: Super Robot Wars OG Saga are already showing a lack of legs, since both of the games dropped considerably from the previous week. Glory of Herakles and Let's Make a Pro Baseball Team! have even fallen out of the top thirty completely. Hardware is the same old story: PSP: 62,016 (9,970) Wii: 44,639 (6,212) Nintendo DS: 35,020 (3,335) PlayStation 3: 10,856 (1,687) PlayStation 2: 6,279 (924) Xbox 360: 2,280 (321) Check out all the software numbers and rankings for yourself, should you feel so inclined. They're listed after the break.
99 Tears Vs. 96 Tears
Remember that time you spent fifteen minutes on all fours on the kitchen floor, violently bawling your eyes out over the final, bitter departure of a loved one, or the sudden death of your dog in a road accident? Good times, right? Well, 99 no Namida (Tears of 99) will be aiming to replicate those surges of emotion throughout Japan from tomorrow, when the sob-inducing game gets released. It's intended to be for your own health, apparently.In case you somehow doubted the game's efficacy in making you blubber through one of its 200 short stories, Namco Bandai has attempted to scientifically prove just how much inner turmoil the title can generate. The pie charts above came about after the company conducted a survey of 500 people to highlight the effectiveness of 99 no Namida.And this is where it gets a bit obscure. We know that the white areas in the pie charts represent people who didn't cry, and the dark blue indicates those who cried heavily. We also know that the right chart depicts the proportion of people who cried while playing 99 no Namida, while the left chart displays how many cried when ... well, we're not actually sure, but the headline does reference 1960s rock and roll band Question Mark & The Mysterians and their song "96 Tears." Man, beats us.Whatever the first chart represents, the central message remains the same: 99 no Namida will make the majority of players cry big, salty tears. Now weep your sad selves into our gallery for six new shots.%Gallery-15389%
99 no Namida: Cry Your Eyes Out in Minutes a Day!
If you're worried that playing too much Contra 4 has made you lose touch with your sensitive side, 99 no Namida (Tears of 99) might be just what you need! Announced earlier today by Namco Bandai, 99 no Namida is a game specifically designed to make you cry, just like your promiscuous ex-girlfriend.Players are first asked to provide a few details which the game then uses to pick out the narrative most likely to pull at your heartstrings. After 10-15 minutes of that, players fill out a Brain Age-esque questionnaire to establish their profiles. For example, if your answers betray an empathy for animals or pets, expect a tearjerker about a young pig befriending a loquacious spider in the near future.99 no Namida plays on the principle that people feel better after crying -- according to a study conducted with the game at Waseda University, most people experienced a noticeable "mood increase" after playing 99 no Namida. The remaining testers were likely too insecure to admit their weakness to the game's "crying trigger points." Because of this title's emphasis on its Japanese text, relying on a simple graphics style reminiscent of Feel the Magic, very few of you will benefit from importing 99 no Namida. Instead, you'll have to settle for listening to The Cure's "Pictures of You" on repeat, sobbing into a pillow as you wonder how you lost it all. %Gallery-15389%[Via Siliconera]
