Wii U continues to improve in Japan

The Wii U continued to feel the benefit of Super Mario 3D World's existence, picking up another 7000 sales in Japan to hold on to second place in the hardware chart.

The Wii U showed significant improvement for the second week running, rising from 21,000 to 28,000 units sold. That makes Nintendo's console the second most popular platform in Japan, albeit sandwiched between its sister systems the DS and the 3DS.

The hardware chart is below, with previous week's sales in parantheses:

• 3DS LL - 82,409 (63,709)
• Wii U - 28,518 (21,002)
• 3DS - 25,964 (20,797)
• PlayStation Vita - 20,202 (21,044)
• PlayStation 3 - 13,311 (12,436)
• PlayStation Vita TV - 5,391 (7,868)
• PSP - 4,232 (3,546)
• Wii - 588 (457)
• Xbox 360 - 309 (342)

The software chart was relatively quiet, with Sega's Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai 2 narrowly beating out Pokemon X and Y - which was released almost two months ago - for the top spot with 88,000 sales.

The other big new entry was Tecmo Koei's Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends, which charted in fifth place with 35,000 sales. From a western perspective, however, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag was the other key launch of the week, and it charted directly behind Dynasty Warriors 8 by a deficit of 124 copies.

An abbreviated software chart is below, with lifetime sales in parentheses:

• [3DS] Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai 2 (Sega, 11/28/13) - 88,708 (New)
• [3DS] Pokemon X and Y (Nintendo, 10/12/13) - 86,391 (3,089,129)
• [PS3] Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (Square Enix, 11/21/13) - 60,073 (337,155)
• [Wii U] Super Mario 3D World (Nintendo, 11/21/13) - 39,812 (139,400)
• [PS3] Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends (Tecmo Koei, 11/28/13) - 35,472(New)
• [PS3] Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft, 11/28/13) - 35,348 (New)
• [PS3] Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 (Konami, 11/14/13) - 25,166 (212,844)
• [3DS] One Piece: Unlimited World R (Namco Bandai, 11/21/13) - 24,623 (108,228)
• [PS3] Super Robot Wars OG Infinite Battle (Namco Bandai, 11/28/13) - 22,833(New)
• [3DS] Monster Hunter 4 (Capcom, 09/14/13) - 21,969 (2,981,758)

Thanks, Gematsu.