Japan Charts: Dragon Warrior remake tops a million opening week sales

Square Enix has scored yet another massive hit in Japan, with over 1.1 million units of Dragon Warrior V - a PS2 remake of a classic SNES RPG - sold in the game's first weekend at retail.

Although Dragon Warrior isn't a major name here in the west, in Japan it's a series that rivals Final Fantasy in terms of popularity - as proved by this impressive first week performance for the latest remake in the series, which is well ahead of the sales of the Dragon Warrior IV remake, which shifted just over half a million units in its first week back in 2001.

That said, it's still a fair bit less than the sales of the last new Dragon Warrior game - Dragon Warrior VII, released in 2000, sold over 1.8 million units in its first week, and anticipation for the next new title is huge in the Far East, easily matching the hype surrounding the forthcoming Final Fantasy XII.

There are several other new releases in the ranking this week, although they're all rather overshadowed by the massive success of Dragon Warrior V. Banpresto's Dragon Ball Z: Bukutou Geki on GBA is at number tow, having shifted 78,000 units, while Bandai's GBA title Full Metal Alchemist: Stray Rondo, based on Square Enix' newest franchise, clocks in at number three with sales of 71,000 units.

Elsewhere in the top ten there are more new entries for Konami's PS2 sports title Pro Baseball Spirits 2004 (at number five), Bandai's Kokjiki no Gashbell (a PS2 title which, despite its eye-watering title, is actually based on a fairly popular anime series) and Sega's latest AGES 2500 Series re-release, with Vol.11 of the collection featuring the company's Fist of the North Star game (and retailing at 2,500 yen, or around £13).

In hardware terms, Dragon Warrior V drove sales of the PS2 skywards and the console enjoys almost 53 per cent market share this week, well ahead of the GBA which has just under 40 per cent share. The GameCube falls back slightly once again - unsurprisingly since there are no GC titles in the top ten ranking - and has just over six per cent share.

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