Soul Calibur V sees a disappointing Japanese launch

Soul Calibur V, the latest installment from Namco Bandai's long-running fighting game series, saw a disappointing launch in Japan last week, where it was outsold at retail by Capcom's 3DS game Resident Evil: Revelations. Soul Calibur V's PS3 version was the second best-selling game of the week after moving 34,786 copies, according to Japan's Media Create. That's less than half of the 74,607 Soul Calibur IV for PS3 sold in its 2008 debut week. The Xbox 360 version fared even worse: 7,600 for SCV compared to 34,786 for SCIV. The top selling game overall was Capcom's Resident Evil: Revelations for the 3DS, now in its second week on the market. Sony's new PS Vita handheld continues to struggle with no big releases on the immediate horizon, selling 17,141 units during the week, only a tick more than the 15,847 its predecessor, the PSP, sold, and well shy of the 75,018 units of Nintendo's red hot 3DS that got into players' hands last week. Vita sales were helped slightly by the debut of GungHo's Ragnarok Odyssey, which sold 33,496 units thanks in part to a strong downloadable demo. Ragnorak Odyssey's sales maintain a PS Vita presence in the top ten software sales chart, as Namco Bandai's Tales of Innocence R, a port of a four-year-old DS RPG, has already fallen off that list from its number one debut last week. It should be noted that Media Create only tracks physical retail sales. Digital sales of Vita games, which are available day-and-date with their retail counterparts, are not provided by Sony.