Capcom: New Monster Hunter Game Ships 2M For First Week In Japan

Capcom announced today it has shipped two million units of Monster Hunter Freedom 3 for the title's first week of sales in Japan. The shipment numbers for the new PSP title, which first hit Japanese stores December 1, represents a new record for the series, Capcom said, though those shipped units don't necessarily represent games sold through to consumers just yet. The first primary PSP release in the series for nearly three years, Monster Hunter Freedom 3 introduces new environments and combat systems, as well as new abilities to share gameplay data with other players online. The Monster Hunter series has continually proven its popularity in Japan -- selling more than 15 million units since its 2004 debut, Capcom says, with previous entries in the series seeing healthy sales across a range of platforms. In July, a newly-released Monster Hunter title for the Xbox 360 led weekly software sales in the country despite that system's relatively small Japanese user base. Last month, PSP spin-off Monster Hunter Diary: Poka Poka Ailu Village outsold its nearest competition for its release week by a factor of five, helping to drive PSP hardware sales for the week as well. And last August, robust release week sales of over half a million units for the Wii's Monster Hunter 3 helped increase weekly sales for the system nearly 300 percent.