Japan Charts: Dynasty Warriors holds GTA off the top spot

Koei's Dynasty Warriors 4 has gone straight in at number one in the Japanese software charts, holding Grand Theft Auto 3 off the top spot despite very respectable first week sales for the title.

Top-ranked title Dynasty Warriors 4 sold through around 307,000 units during the week, a similar number to the first week sales of the previous title in the series, Dynasty Warriors 3.

Grand Theft Auto 3, released in Japan by Capcom, came in at number two with first week sales of some 130,000 units. This is a strong first week for the game, and makes it into one of the most successful foreign-developed games ever to be released in Japan - although it's still distinctly B-list by the standards of the Japanese software market as a whole.

The first week sales of the game elevate it to the same sort of position as other rare overseas-developed success stories in Japan, such as last Christmas' release of Ratchet & Clank - which was supported by Sony with a massive advertising campaign.

GTA also edged out a number of other major new releases, including Konami's The Prince of Tennis - Sweat & Tears 2 on the PS2, which is based on the massively popular anime series The Prince of Tennis and debuted at number three.

Other new releases this week included Hudson's GameCube RPG title Far East Eden II: Manji Maru, which appeared at number six, and Bandai's PS2 title Sunrise World War - From Sunrise Hero, another anime based title (centred on characters created by Bandai's hugely successful anime studio Sunrise) which appeared at number seven.

One new GBA title also made it into the listing, with Kids' Station's Zettai Zetsumei Dangerous Jiisan appearing at number nine in the ranking, just behind the only other GBA game in the list - Nintendo's Legendary Stafy 2, which drops to number eight this week.

Other titles still selling strongly included Square Enix' Drag-on Dragoon, Bandai's Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space, and still holding on in the top ten, Konami's incredibly successful football title, World Soccer Winning Eleven 7, which was at number ten this week.

In hardware terms, the GBA continues to be Japan's favourite console - with some 47 per cent of the hardware market to itself. The PlayStation 2 held 37.4 per cent of the market, while the GameCube slipped a little this week, dropping back to 13.2 per cent.

Business as usual at the top end of the market, then - while at the lower reaches of the hardware sales ranking, the Xbox rescued itself from the ignominy of being outsold by the SwanCrystal handheld last week, recording 0.85 per cent market share - marginally ahead of the PSone for the first time in weeks.

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