Japanese Charts: PS3's White Knight Debuts On Top

Sony has enjoyed another number one hit in Japan, with PlayStation 3 exclusive White Knight Chronicles becoming the best selling title in one of the country’s busiest sales weeks. With the Japanese gift-giving period centering around New Year celebrations, the week ending December 28th saw significant sales across the board. Developed by Dragon Quest VIII and Professor Layton creator Level-5, role-playing game White Knight Chronicles has long been seen as one of the PlayStation 3’s most important exclusives for the Japanese market. Recently confirmed for future release in the West, the game sold 206,954 units in its first week. A total of five games in the top 10 sold over 100,000 units, although with New Year’s Eve just days away there were few other new entries. Dissidia: Final Fantasy for the PSP was the second-highest seller, with impressive second week sales of 176,385 units. Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii was at number three with 144,179 unit sales, with Kirby Super Star Ultra on Nintendo DS at number four with 140,934 units and Wagamama Fashion: Gals Mode on DS at number five with 105,225 unit sales. Sega’s Phantasy Star Zero on DS was the only other new entry in the top ten, at number seven. Although the sales of 84,055 units are by no means poor, they are much below that of Phantasy Star Portable on PSP - which sold 342,000 units on its debut in August. The only other new entry in the top 30 was the new Wii de Asobu (aka New Play Control!) version of Pikmin for the Wii. Debuting at number 18, the game is a re-release of the original GameCube title with new motion sensitive controls. Overall in the top 50, there were 22 titles for the Nintendo DS, 14 for the Wii, six for the PSP, four each for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2, and none for the Xbox 360. Thanks to the Japanese holidays, the chart results were reported a few days earlier than usual, with hardware figures for the week already available. This saw the Nintendo DSi easily maintaining its lead as the top-selling platform, even as sales fell slightly, by 9,000 units to 245,150. The Wii overtook the PSP for second place, although it only increased its sales by 4,000 units to 134,958. Boosted last week by the release of hardware bundles for Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Sony’s portable saw its sales drop by 27,000 units to 118,765. Despite the success of White Knight Chronicles sales of the PlayStation 3 increased by less than 7,000 units, to 45,989. Although well ahead of the Xbox 360, which was largely unchanged at 13,011 units, this was still less than the older DS Lite model of portable on 56,453.

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