come present the game at E3 2004. Players wanting the game to release in the West also wrote to Namco for a release. By July 2004, Namco officially announced the game's release in North America for September 2004. The game was never officially released in Europe, though its subsequent sequels would receive European releases. In the Japanese language, means "clump" or "clod" and Damashii is the rendaku form of which means "soul" or "spirit". Therefore, the phrase approximates to "clump spirit". The two kanji that form the name look similar (sharing the same right-side element 鬼), in a kind of visual alliteration. The name is officially transliterated as Katamari Damacy in most releases. Game creator Keita Takahashi said that the title suddenly popped into his head from the start and never changed during development. Reception Katamari Damacy enjoyed moderate success in Japan. The game was sold at about two-thirds of the price of a new game at the time. It was the top selling game the week of its release with 32,000 units sold, and sold over 155,000 copies in Japan by the end of 2004. However, Namco originally estimated that over 500,000 units would be sold in Japan. The game was not released in PAL territories such as Europe and Australia since publishers thought it was too "quirky" for these markets; however, Electronic Arts picked up both sequels, We Love Katamari and Me & My Katamari, for release in Europe. The North American release of the game was very well received by professional reviewers, was mentioned and praised on TechTV, and was a featured sidebar in the May 23, 2004, edition of Time magazine. Time continued to praise the game in its November 22, 2004 "Best games of the year" special, calling it "the most unusual and original game to hit PlayStation2". Most retailers underestimated the demand for such a quirky game, and only purchased a few copies of this sleeper hit; it rapidly sold out nationwide, with sales surpassing 120,000 units in North America. It also won the U.S. award for "Excellence in Game Design" at the 2005 Game Developers Choice Awards, and G4 awarded Katamari Damacy its "Best Innovation" prize in its G-Phoria of that year. Katamari Damacy was one of the recipients of the 2004 Good Design Award in Japan, the first time a video game has won this award. Katamari Damacy won two awards from