Stiq Figures, April 9 - 15: Kirby edition
Welcome to Stiq Figures, where the sales data is after the break and the posts don't matter. Every week, we take a look at, uh, something – meanwhile, the previous week's Japanese hardware sales figures are posted after the jump, and a discussion of said figures takes place in our comments. Those interested in the minutiae of the Japanese gaming economy get the numbers they so desperately crave, and everyone else gets something (hopefully) interesting to end their week on. It may not be conventional, but it's a time-honored Joystiq tradition.
The announcement of a Kirby 20th Anniversary collection for the Wii reminded us of one of our favorite little anecdotes from the early days of Nintendo's life in America. See, during the development of the first Kirby game, Hoshi no Kābī for the Game Boy, series creator Masahiro Sakurai and Shigeru Miyamoto had a disagreement. Despite the Game Boy's inability to display color, Sakurai saw Kirby as being pink, whereas Miyamoto envisioned a bright yellow Kirby.
When it came time for Nintendo of America to localize Hoshi no Kābī as Kirby's Dream Land, the conflicting stories regarding Kirby's actual color resulted in the ghostly vissage you see above. Perhaps in an attempt to play it safe, or to reflect Kirby's actual color on the black and white Game Boy, everything from the box art to the television commercial featured a Kirby more akin to a Boo than the little pink puffball we've now grown to love.
3DS: 63,796 [DOWN] 8,319 (11.54%)
PS3: 17,765 [DOWN] 1,605 (8.29%)
PSP: 13,166 [DOWN] 1,638 (11.06%)
Vita: 8,250 [DOWN] 681 (7.63%)
Wii: 6,837 [DOWN] 262 (3.69%)
Xbox 360: 1,373 [DOWN] 2,391 (63.52%)
PS2: 1,212 [DOWN] 143 (10.55%)
DSi LL: 800 [UP] 7 (0.88%)
DSi: 633 [DOWN] 110 (14.80%)
