We've had a nice stay in the Land of the Rising Fun[TM], but as the Tokyo Game Show has drawn to a close, it's time for us to repack our Samsonites and return to American soil. What have we brought with us? Well, other than a week's worth of cherished memories and a whole address book full of new pen pals, we've also obtained a deeper understanding of the weekly Japanese hardware sales statistics -- from our position on the ground in Tokyo, we got a pretty good look at how the sausage gets made.

You guys wouldn't believe how crazy intricate the whole process is: People, they, like buy stuff. Or they don't. And that makes the numbers in the chart go up. Or down! We know, we can barely wrap our minds around it ourselves.