'Ranking' Category

Dragon Quest V: Tenkuu No Hanayome made a monstrous start in Japan with more than 640,000 copies sold on its first week, making Gundam Battle Universe (GBU) otherwise impressive start of 138,000 looks pale in comparison. GBU’s first week figure also improved greatly from its predecessor, Gundam Battle Chronicle, which opened with 90,000. The other debutant is Aquaplus great looking strategy game Tears to Tiara: Kakan no Daichi for the PS3, which sold 34,000 copies.

The Metallic Blue PSP packs were also released last week and together with GBU, they gave PSP a hefty boost of 76,000 units according to early figure from Sinobi, just enough to fight off the spike that NDS received with Dragon Quest V. Interestingly, the various colors of PSP are also back at the Amazon Japan chart as well, probably in anticipation of Phantasy Star Portable’s July 31st release in the country.

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God of War: Chains of Olympus made a respectable start in Japan last week with around 17,000 copies sold according to Enterbrain. However, both Irem’s Poncotsu Roman Daikatsugeki Bumpy Trot: Vehicle Battle Tournament and Shinseiki GPX Cyber Formula VS did very poorly.

The star of the week is obviously Persona 4 whose first week number is better than the rest of Top 10 combined. Now Atlus, please work on the Persona PSP that you’ve promised us :)

Update: MediaWorks chart added. On the week’s hardware, Media Create has PSP take a small lead over DS with around 56,000 units sold.

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After a slew of new titles last week, the charts are slowly going back to normal this week with the unique looking music game from Nintendo Daigasso! Band Brothers DX overtaking another DS title Derby Stallion DS as the top seller in Japan last week. Sega’s Initial D Extreme Stage for PS3 makes its debut at the 2nd spot with more than 40,000 copies on its so called limited marketing budget. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G is in the charts again this week with another 18,000 new hunters.

We’ll see how this week’s PSP new releases do tomorrow as today is God of War: Chains of Olympus Japanese debut. Irem’s Poncotsu Roman Daikatsugeki Bumpy Trot: Vehicle Battle Tournament and Sunrise’s racer Shinseiki GPX Cyber Formula VS are the other two major PSP releases.

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Plenty of new releases make it to the Top 10 this week, which also see Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G being knocked off the charts for the first time in 14 weeks. Nintendo Wii also surpass the PSP to become the best selling hardware of the week according to early figures from Enterbrain, thanks to Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk, which moved close to 140,000 copies. Acquire continues with its good run on PSP with Ken To Mahou To Gakuen Mono as the RPG made an encouraging start at around 30,000 copies. That’s slightly better than the first week number of the company’s previous game Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida, of which a sequel has been announced.

Update: Media Create’s hardware figures still show PSP leading with more than 58,000 units sold.

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PlayStation 3 games at the top of the Japanese charts for two weeks in a row? That’s something unusual as Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots take over from Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit to lead the charts this week with an incredible sales of more than 450,000 copies from its amazing debut. Well deserved considering how good the game is (I’m still at Act 2 unfortunately).

PSP has two games on the charts, something must be really awesome in Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu Portable 3 that it actually maintain its Top 5 position. Although dropping out of the Top 10 after two weeks, Marvelous’ RPG Valhalla Knights 2 is still has respectable sales at 15 in Media Create.

Next week, expect Banpresto’s Super Robot Wars A Portable to do extemely well for PSP. In their early report to Mainichi, retailer Tsutaya says the GBA port is the hottest new release this week but they expect MGS4’s “dash” to continue for a second week. Nintendo Wii’s Super Mario Stadium: Family Baseball is another big title to look out for.

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Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit is the best selling high profile launches last Thursday with more than 90,000 copies sold. Other big launches including Sega’s beautiful RPG Fushigi no Dungeon - Furai no Shiren 3: Karakuri Yashiki no Nemuri Hime for the Wii, Ninja Gaiden II for Xbox 360 and the second DS Yamamura Misa Suspense game, the first one did really well last October.

However, three PSP games manage to stay in the charts with Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu Portable 3 sold another 43,000 copies and Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G outselling Ninja Gaiden II. I’m very surprised at Valhalla Knights 2’s staying power as well, the game now sold 50,000 copies. Early hardware figures say PSP still the leader with 53,000 units sold but Wii is not far behind with around 40,000 units sold.

There will be no major PSP game release again this week, but all eyes will be on a little game called Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which has just arrived on my table 10 minutes ago.

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We have seven new entries in the charts this week and it’s great to see three of them are PSP titles, including top spot for Konami’s Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu Portable 3. The popular baseball series with cute characters have a surprisingly big opening week with close to 110,000 copies sold, that’s almost the cumulative sales of the previous game. Famitsu says it’s the Success Mode and My Life Mode in the game that help pushed the game’s sales.

Another impressive PSP title is Valhalla Knights 2’s 35,000 start, beating the original game’s first week and hope it bodes well for its US release. Of the three adventure games released on the PSP, Clannad proved that it’s the most popular with almost 30,000 copies while the two Memories Off games only have a combined sales of 8,000 copies.

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After eight weeks, Pro Yakyuu Team o Tsukurou! became the first game to unseat Mario Kart Wii and Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G from the top spots in the latest Japanese charts. At this rate, MHP 2ndG looks all set to surpass Wii Fit’s cumulative sales next week for Media Create (although it has already done so based on Enterbrain’s data). Early Enterbrain’s figures also shows that PSP is still leading on the hardware front.

Next week will be an interesting week for PSP as Konami’s highly popular baseball series Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu Portable 3 and Marvelous’ RPG Valhalla Knights 2 get released. Not forgetting also the trio of adventure games (Clannad, Memories Off and Memories Off 2nd), who all have been popular in Japan.

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Bleach: Heat the Soul 5 made a great start in Japan last week with around 40,000 copies sold and seems to be well on its way to beat the series’ previous sales record (Bleach: Heat the Soul 4 sold 120,000 copies so far). Unfortunately, the other PSP debutant, Irem’s Ikuze! Gen-San: Yuuyake Daiku Monogatari, did poorly with only less than 2,000 copies sold, thanks to Weekly Famitsu rather average review of 6,5,6,6 (the one hit death and long loading time are the major complaints).

It’s rather pleasing to see two PSP games in the Top 10 with the rest being Nintendo’s games as well. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G’s close fight with Mario Kart Wii continues with a top spot for each on Media Create and Enterbrain respectively.

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Mario Kart Wii and Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G remain strong in their 6th and 8th week respectively, with the latter reaching it’s 2 million sold milestone few days ago. The charts are dominated by Nintendo’s titles, with Wii Sports, Hajimete no Wii: Your First Step To Wii and Dairantou Smash Bros. X all return to take their usual positions. Also note the incredible run of Mario Kart DS, more than 2 years after its launch. On the hardware side, PSP sold 20,000 units less than the previous week but is still ahead of the rest of the pack at around 73,000 units.

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