Metal Gear Solid 4 smashes Japanese chart

Metal Gear Solid 4 sold over 465,000 copies in its first week on sale in Japan, putting Konami at the top of the Japanese software chart.

That works out at nearly 12 times more than its closest competitor Mario Kart Wii with 38,000 sales, according to Media Create data for the week ending 15th June.

The effect Metal Gear Solid 4 has had on PS3 sales is still unknown, although Japanese magazine Famitsu has reportedly put its early estimation at around 70,000 hardware units sold.

Sony managed to shift 10,856 PS3 consoles in the week leading up to the game's launch

Full figures are expected tomorrow and, if those early predictions turn out to be true, it will be a vastly different story to the UK where MGS4 had only a "minimal impact" on PS3 hardware sales in Chart-Track's phrase.

The rest of the software chart saw Nintendo best-sellers Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit take two and three, with the early success of Konami's PSP baseball outing, Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball Portable 3, fading to four.

Capcom followed with its PSP unit-shifter Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G at five, with D3Publisher entering the chart with a DS Pachinko offering at six.

Namco Bandai fighter Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit continued to sell well on PS3 to take seven, ahead of Nintendo's Beautiful Letter Training for DS at eight.

Rounding out the chart were Tecmo's Kyoto Murder Files for DS at nine, and SEGA with Mysterious Dungeon 3 on Wii at 10.

The top 40 was made up of 15 games on DS, nine on Wii, three on PSP, two on PS3 and one on PS2.

1. Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots (Konami, PS3) - 465,000
2. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 38,000 (lifetime: 1,444,000)
3. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 37,000 (lifetime: 2,227,000)
4. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball Portable 3 (Konami, PSP) - 27,000 (lifetime) 187,000
5. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (Capcom, PSP) - 26,000 (lifetime: 2,203,000)
6. Hisshou Pachinko Pachislot Kouryaku Series DS Vol. 2 CR Shinseki Evangelion ~Shito, Futatabi~ (D3Publisher, DS) - 22,000
7. Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit (Namco Bandai, PS3) - 18,000 (lifetime: 111,000)
8. Beautiful Letter Training (Nintendo, DS) - 17,000 (lifetime: 285,000)
9. DS Yamamura Misa Suspense: Kyoto Murder Files (Tecmo, DS) - 17,000 (lifetime: 56,000)
10. Mysterious Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren 3 (SEGA, Wii) - 14,000 (lifetime: 73,00)