Japan Charts: New Dragon Ball Z title is a winner for Bandai
The latest PS2 fighting game based on the Dragon Ball Z anime franchise has gone straight in at number one in the Japanese charts, with the Bandai-published title selling 427,000 units in its first weekend at retail.
The latest PS2 fighting game based on the Dragon Ball Z anime franchise has gone straight in at number one in the Japanese charts, with the Bandai-published title selling 427,000 units in its first weekend at retail.
That puts sales of the game - the third in the beat 'em up series - well ahead of opening weekend sales of the previous iteration, which managed 324,000 units in the same period of time.
The market as a whole was lifted significantly this week by the arrival of a number of successful new titles, although Dragon Ball Z 3 was by far the biggest seller - outselling the number two title in the chart by a factor of over ten to one.
Second place went to PSP title Popolo Crois Monogatari: Pietro Ouji no Bouken, the latest in Sony's internally developed, saccharine sweet and inexplicably popular adventure game series which focuses on the exploits of an improbably small prince.
Sega's PS2 samurai action title Shinsengumi Gunraw Den came in at number three, while Spike's truck racing title Shin Bakusou Dekotora Densetsu, also at PS2, was the final new release of the week at number four.
Further down the chart, Banpresto's licensed mech battling duo continue to sell well, with GBA title Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2 at number seven, while PS2 title Another Century's Episode is at number eight.
New PSP title Popolo Crois is the only entry in the charts for the new platform at number two, and the Nintendo DS only racks up a single entry as well - with Yoshi Touch and Go at number five.
In hardware terms, the PlayStation Portable was the best selling console in Japan once again last week, with just shy of 36 per cent market share, leading the PlayStation 2 with 31 per cent share and the Nintendo DS with 21 per cent.
Overall sales of the PSP, however, continue to lag significantly behind those of the Nintendo DS - although the gap is narrowing slightly on a week to week basis as the Sony console continues to sell more strongly after a stumbling start at the end of last year.