Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending April 2

Sega has achieved a rare modern success with one of its sports titles in Japan, with the latest version of the occasional Pro Soccer Club series going straight in at number one with an impressive 149,370 units sold - something which may well tempt the publisher into producing yearly updates for the series. Giant robot simulator Another Century's Episode 2 sold 111,411 units at number two, but performed significantly worse than its predecessor, which managed 180,885 units on its debut with many stores sold out. Elsewhere in the chart, Nintendo DS Touch! Generation software continued to sell in large volumes, while the PSP saw two new entries at the lower end of the top ten. The first PSP version of Konami’s popular baseball series Power Pro entered at number nine with 44,999 units sold, after two days less in the chart than most other titles. The portable version of popular anime license Naruto also performed relatively well at number ten with 40,527 units sold. In hardware sales, the Nintendo DS increased its weekly sales numbers yet again, with 209,274 units sold – 149,371 of the new DS Lite and 59,903 of the original version of the hardware. This is despite the absence of any major new releases, with Xenosaga I & II entering at only number fifteen and the highly promoted Contact severely underperforming at number twenty-eight. With Final Fantasy XII slipping down the charts, the PSP retook its second place in the hardware stakes, with sales up to 36,943 compared to 33,301 for the PlayStation 2. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold 9,875 units, with the Xbox 360 recording its best week since the release of Dead or Alive 4 with 3,258 sales – well above the GameCube’s total of 1,492. The small upturn in the Xbox 360’s fortune was due to the release of Rumble Roses XX at number seventeen in the charts and flight sim Over G Fighters at number thirty-eight – proving that titles suitable for Japanese gaming tastes can perform well and positively affect hardware sales.

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