Japan Charts: Market picks up as three new titles debut over the 100k unit mark

The Japanese software market has been lifted out of its post-New Year slump by a number of major launches, with three new titles selling over 100,000 units each - led by Banpresto's mech combat game Another Century's Episode.

The title, which features famous mechs from a range of popular anime series, sold around 181,000 units to take the top spot - and with only 200,000 units of the game shipped, demand for the game saw it selling out in many major stores.

Square Enix' PS2 RPG Radiata Stories was at number two, followed by Capcom's Cube title Resident Evil 4 at number three, with both of the games selling over 100,000 units in their first few days at retail.

Further down the ranking, another three new releases made it into the chart, with DS title Yoshi Touch and Go coming in at number four, while Atlus' RPG Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2 (PS2) was at number five and Namco's Tekken spin-off, Death By Degrees (PS2), was at number six.

Two more DS titles were in the top ten this week, with Wario Ware Touched! at number nine and Super Mario 64 DS at number ten, while the increased volume of sales of the top ten titles squeezed PSP software out of the ranking, with the installed base of the system still too low to compete seriously on software sales.

In terms of hardware, however, the PSP took the lion's share of the market with nearly 38 per cent share, trailed by the PS2 with 30 per cent and the Nintendo DS with 22 per cent, while the Game Boy Advance managed a mere six per cent, and the Cube only four per cent.