Jump! Ultimate Stars $45.90

Akin to eggs and milk, games generally have short shelf lives. In NCS' experience, if a game doesn't sell well in the first 2 weeks of release, we can expect the inventory to sit in our warehouse for 5-6 years before the stock dwindles down to more manageable levels. Sadly, some games sit in warehousing for nearly 15 years without any signs of depletion.

The majority of new game releases don't sell well. There, we said it. In addition to our surfeit of old stock, we've seen associate warehouses brimming with old games that might go into a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico one of these days... Then there are the superstars. Games that sell well week after week, month after month... chugging along and defying all original sales projections. Jump Superstars is one of those games. Despite being over a year old, the game trounces all other NDS releases in terms of sales volume on a weekly basis.

With that out of the way, NCS opens up preorders for Jump! Ultimate Sars which is scheduled to arrive on or around November 21. New series' fighters join some of the old series' fighters and bout it out in a battle royale of stylus poking fever. Popular characters from Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach are joined by somewhat less familiar heroes from Rurouni Kenshin, Dr. Slump, Hunter X Hunter, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and many more for a total of over 300 fighters in all. To add extra challenge to the fighting, developer Ganbarion includes Wi-Fi battle functionality to ensure that one is never in want of a competitor.

Distributors mention that Jump! Ultimate Stars will include a preorder bonus. Perhaps it's another booklet. Per our usual preorder allocations, NCS expects a 1:2 ratio of bonus to game for Ultimate Stars. As such, early preorders will receive the bonus.