Japanese Charts: Kirby Still On Top Despite Busy Week

The Japanese games market has finally rattled into life, ahead of the New Year gift giving season, with a large number of new entries and strong sales across the board. However, no one title has been overly dominant, with what is known in the West as Kirby Super Star Ultra on Nintendo DS leading by only 16,000 units on a total of 97,000 for the week. In second place the highest new entry was the third in Spike’s Way of the Samurai series, with the first iteration on the PlayStation 3 performing strongly with 81,000 unit sales. Second place went to Konami’s new DS role-playing game, which has already been confirmed for release in the West as Little Magician's Magic Adventure, which sold 72,000 units. In fourth place was a sequel to Sega and ChunSoft’s Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer on DS, with the popular dungeon crawler selling 45,000 units in its first week. Fifth place went to the only other title not for the DS in the top 10, in the shape of Resistance 2 with 34,000 units sold. Although first person shoot ‘em-ups are not traditionally popular in Japan most major franchises can now expect an appearance in the top 10 in their first week, with Insomniac’s sequel performing significantly better than the original’s 13,545 unit debut. By comparison, Tecmo’s detective-themed adventure game DS Nishimura Kyotaro Suspense 2 Shin Tantei Series at number six sold less than half that of its predecessor in its first week, with only 33,000 units. The latest Mega Man Star Force game on the DS also underperformed its immediate predecessor, with the Black Ace version selling 33,000 units at number seven. Alternate version Red Joker charted at only number 13. With most of the new entries making the top 10 this week the only other debuts were Namco Bandai’s Family Ski: World Ski & Snowboard (aka We Ski & Snowboard) for the Wii at number 16 and EA’s soccer sim FIFA 09 for PlayStation 3 at number 18.

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