The winners of the Japan Game Awards 2007 have been announced. The awards look at games released between April 1st, 2006 and March 31st, 2007. The winners were announced as part of the Tokyo Game Show 07 and were organized by the Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association the Japan game Awards Selection Panel. The winners were chosen, via nominations from the public, by the Japan Game Awards Selection Panel, which is made up of industry personnel.
The top pick was Nintendo’s Wii Sports, which won because of it’s ease of play and the view that the game expanded to new audiences who could simply pick it up and play. In a statement, CESA said, “Wii Sports has totally revamped the image of traditional game consoles, and has won over new demographic sectors, particularly women and seniors.”
The second winner was the PSP’s Monster Hunter Portable 2nd, a huge phenomenon in Japan where the game has been a big seller. The panel described it as “more than a game” and explained how it has become a communication tool in the Land of the Rising Sun, particularly among junior high and high school students.
Some other awards handed out included the Best Sales Award, which was snagged by Nintendo’s incredible selling Pokemon Diamond & Pokemon Pearl for DS, which have sold over 4,930,000 units in Japan combined.
And they have two “global” awards, the first being “Global Award Japanese Product”, for a Japanese developed game that did well outside of Japan in Western countries, and that award went to Capcom’s zombie-bashing game Dead Rising. The other award is the opposite, games developed outside of Japan that either did well in the country or were critically acclaimed. That award, called the “Global Award Foreign Product” went to the Microsoft published & Epic-developed 3rd-person shooter Gears of War.
The Japan Game Awards 2007 also recognized many other games for excellence, including: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Ryu ga Gotoku 2, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Blue Dragon, New Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, Gundam Musou, and Okami.