Monster Hunter Spinoff Tops Japanese Charts

Monster Hunter Diary: Poka Poka Ailu Village, a spinoff of Capcom's popular Monster Hunter action RPG series, debuted at the top of the retail charts in Japan, Media Create said Thursday. The PSP game, a cartoonish title that looks more akin to Nintendo's Animal Crossing than Monster Hunter, sold 256,000 units during its debut week ended August 29, following its August 26 release in the region. It helped bump down the previous week's number one game, Namco Bandai's Another Century's Episode R for PlayStation 3, down to the fourth slot. That game sold 28,000 units during the most recent week, down from the prior week's 220,000. Another new PSP game made the charts in a distant second with Namco Bandai's Ace Combat X2: Joint Assault, the latest in the long-running flight combat series, which sold 58,000 units for the week. A third PSP game debuted on the top ten charts with Idea Factory's adventure game Hakuouki: Zuisouroku Portable, which sold 24,000 units. Nintendo's Wii Party had a strong placing once again, coming in third place with 55,000 units sold for the week. Through August 29, the party game sold 860,000 units. Games falling out of the top 10 from last week included Compile Heart's Super Dimensional Game Neptune, Sega's Hatsune Miku: Project Diva 2 and Nintendo's Friend Collection. Below are Media Create's top 10 sales chart for the week ended August 29, 2010.