Japan Charts: Konami's Power Pro Baseball debuts at No.1

The latest PS2 title in Konami's long-running baseball franchise, Jikkyo Power Pro Baseball 12, has gone straight in at number one in the Japanese charts - outstripping its predecessor's first week sales significantly in the process.

Version 12 of the franchise sold 278,000 copies in its first week, helping to drive the overall Japanese leisure software market up to almost a million unit sales for the week, and beating the 205,000 units sold by version 11 in the same period.

According to market watchers Media Create, it's likely that the game will reach the half million unit sales mark if its sales continue at their current pace.

A number of other new titles made their debuts this week, with Sony's PS2 title Ape Escape 3 at number two, selling some 95,000 units, while Sega's latest game-branded Pachinko title, Pachinko Slot! Onimusha 3, is at number three with 67,000 units sold.

Further down the chart, Bandai's anime-licensed Naruto RPG 2 becomes the latest DS game to enter the top ten ranking, selling some 37,000 units to come in at number five, just behind Nintendo's DS title Gentle Brain Exercises. DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain is also still in the top ten, at number nine.

Two GameCube titles also debut in the chart this week, with the Cube version of Jikkyo Power Pro Baseball 12 selling 34,000 units to arrive at number six, while Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix makes a rather odd sight at number ten.

In hardware terms, the PSP continues to be hamstrung by a lack of key software titles - not a single PSP game is to be found in the top ten once again this week, and the console itself manages just 21 per cent market share, well behind the DS with 36 per cent and the PS2 with 30 per cent.

The DS has outsold the PSP by over 100,000 units since the start of January, building on the significant lead which the platform already had thanks to shortages of Sony's console after its launch in early December of last year.