Kid Icarus: Uprising, new bundles lift 3DS Japanese sales

Kid Icarus: Uprising for Nintendo 3DS debuted as the top-selling game in Japan last week, far ahead of PlayStation 3's big releases like Devil May Cry HD Collection and Ninja Gaiden 3. The release of Kid Icarus: Uprising -- the latest title from Super Smash Bros. series director Masahiro Sakurai -- along with new system bundles for Monster Hunter Tri-G and Super Mario 3D Land helped increase 3DS hardware sales by a third to 94,000 units. 3DS system sales dwarf its nearest handheld competitors -- PSP sold almost 20,000 units last week, while PS Vita has been stuck at just above the 10,000 mark for the past month. With no major releases slated in the coming weeks, it's unlikely PS Vita sales will rise much in the near future. While Kid Icarus: Uprising sold 132,000 copies, Capcom's new Devil May Cry HD Collection for PS3 sold 44,000, a third of that amount. Tecmo Koei's Ninja Gaiden 3 for PS3 sold only 30,000 copies, much lower than 2008's opening week for Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (42,000). Last week's top ten sales chart was dominated by portable titles, including Sega's Black Panther 2: Yakuza Ashura Chapter for PSP (105,000 copies), Nintendo and Tecmo's Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition for DS (65,000), and Sega's Shining Blade for PSP (19,000). 3DS's trio of popular selling games continue to perform well, as Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, and Capcom's Monster Hunter 3G all sold between 20,000 and 22,000 copies. Full software and hardware sales charts for the March 12 to 18 period in Japan, provided by Media Create and translated by NeoGAF, are available here.