Japan Charts: Konami's Winning Eleven 7 International tops the table

Football title World Soccer Winning Eleven 7 International has taken the top spot in the Japanese software charts this week, beating off strong competition from other major titles in one of the busiest weeks of the year to date for new releases.

The International edition of Konami's hugely popular game incorporates changes originally introduced in the well-received Pro Evolution Soccer 3 in Europe, and has managed to sell over 300,000 units in its first weekend on sale - not bad for a game which has already sold extremely strongly in its original form.

Directly behind it in the charts is Bandai's SD Gundam GGeneration SEED, which draws once more on the company's massively popular and long-running Gundam franchise and has sold around 270,000 units in two days. Square Enix' Final Fantasy X-2 International, which incorporates a new "Last Mission" section, is the third major debut of the week, taking the number four place with 170,000 units sold.

Two other new releases made it into the top ten this week, with Aruze's sequel to its excellent PS2 RPG, Shadow Hearts II, at number seven, while Tecmo's horse racing title Gallop Racer Lucky 7 is at number ten.

Elsewhere in the chart, last week's number one Sengoku Musou (Samurai Warrior) is at number three this week, and the GBA has three titles in the top ten, with Nintendo's Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green at five and eight respectively, while Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros is at number six. The other seven titles are all PS2 games, and in fact the PS2 has some 75 per cent of the software market this week.

In hardware terms, the GBA once again dominates with over 57 per cent market share by units, with the PS2 has almost 37 per cent of the market. The GameCube is at its lowest ebb since Christmas, with under 5 per cent market share - less than half a per cent ahead of sales of the original (non-SP) GBA console, in fact, and being outsold by almost 7.5 times by the PS2.

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