The DS is cooking in Japan...no, really. The interactive cookbook "game" released in the week ending July 23rd.

Courtesy of Media-Create, we have the most recent sales figures from Japan.

The big news this week was the release of the new DS colour "Noble Pink". Wouldn't you know it, those systems sold out easily. Some reports say that many of these systems (at least as confirmed by those waiting in line for theirs) actually went to men who were getting it for their girlfriends. Either way, there is good news in the on-going saga of DS Lite availability in Japan: the effects of increased manufacturing output can finally begun to be felt. As Next-Gen puts it:

...It's well worth noting that, at long last, the DS drought has ended, and one can walk into any store in Tokyo and . . . well, if they don't have any DS Lites, try the store next door, and if THEY don't have any, surely the third store will have one. This marks an 82.5% increase over your chances of finding a DS Lite no matter how many stores you walked into back in April.

On the software side, the plumbers recaptured the top spot yet again as New Super Mario Bros. again rang up a six-digit sales week. Making its debut, an intriguing DS "non-game" that functions as sort of an interactive cookbook proved a strong seller as well. This software stores hundreds of recipes that it can quiz you on, not to mention its functionality during actual cooking: with Shaberu! DS Oryouri Nabi the user can recieve cooking instructions read aloud by the software. Certain functions such as "next step" and "repeat" can be voice-activated as well. Lastly, it should be noted that Animal Crossing: Wild World has hit upon another milestone: it is now a triple platinum seller in Japan after passing 3 million units sold this past week (and counting).

The weekly software numbers follow (hardware numbers upcoming):

The week's console numbers follow: