Strong debuts for Armored Core V, RE: Revelations in Japan

From Software's Armored Core V and Capcom's Resident Evil: Revelations both made strong debuts in Japan last week, while Tales of Innocence R helped push PS Vita sales ahead of its predecessor. Armored Core V for PlayStation 3 was not only the top-selling game last week, it was the biggest launch ever for the mecha series -- another triumph for From Software, which has enjoyed commercial success and critical acclaim in recent years from its Demon's Souls and Dark Souls releases. Behind ACV's PS3 release (Xbox 360 edition placed #6), Resident Evil: Revelations also made a respectable entrance, selling nearly 150,000 copies, one of the best debuts for the franchise on a Nintendo platform. Monster Hunter 3G, also a Capcom 3DS title, continues to sell well, moving over 27,000 units last week. In fact, 3DS games from Nintendo and third-party publishers made up more than half of Japan's top ten software sales chart, thanks to Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, Sega's Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure, and Level-5's Inazuma Eleven Go: Shine / Dark. A PS Vita game broke into the top 20 list for the first time since the system's Japanese launch seven weeks ago (the chart does not include digital sales via PlayStation Network), with Namco Bandai's Tales of Innocence R selling almost 55,000 units and appearing in the #3 spot. Other new games that broke into the top 20 last week include The Idolmaster: Gravure For You! Vol. 4 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Mokuba no Kiseki, both released by Namco Bandai for PSP. Nintendo's evergreen Wii games like Wii Party, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Sports Resort continue to populate the bottom half of the top 20, while steady sales for three-SKU 3DS game Nintendogs + Cats have inched it closer toward half a million copies sold in Japan. The complete top 20 chart for the week ending January 29, 2012, as supplied by Media Create and translated by NeoGAF, is shown below:

Though it appeared that PS Vita's hardware sales would continue to slide two weeks ago and fall below 15,000 units, the new handheld did get a slight boost last week and moved almost 19,000 systems -- not a significant change, but that was enough for the system to outsell PSP for the first time since its launch. Nintendo's 3DS, still the best-selling system -- as it has been every week since the portable's August price cut -- sold nearly 85,000 units, 4,000 more than the previous week. Sales for PS3, PSP, Wii, the Nintendo DSi family, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 2 remained mostly the same. Below are the full sales rankings provided by Media Create (the second chart lumps together sales of all models in a given line of hardware):

This week's notable software releases at retail in Japan include Xbox 360/PS3 games like BioWare's Dragon Age II, Namco Bandai's Soul Calibur V, and Konami's NeverDead. GungHo's Ragnarok Odyssey, which has seen over 100,000 demo downloads, releases for PS Vita.