Zombie Yakuza game tops Japanese charts

Sega's latest entry in the Yakuza franchise has proved a significant hit in Japan, with the PlayStation 3 game selling 298,717 units in its debut week.

Although it retains many of the same characters as the previous titles, the new game is a more action-orientated spin-off featuring a zombie attack on Tokyo. Despite the strong sales, the debut is still less than that of the more serious-minded Yakuza 3 (372,000 units) and Yakuza 4 (384,000 units).

Sales in the rest of the chart were as slow as previous weeks, with Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D on 3DS holding onto second place but selling only 15,551 units.

The second-highest new entry of the week was an anime-themed pachinko game at number six with just 6,808 first week sales.

Although its chart position is higher than that achieved in the UK individual format charts Red Faction: Armageddon at number nine sold only 5,436 units on PlayStation 3.

In terms of hardware sales there was little change from the previous week, with the gap between the PSP and 3DS remaining much smaller than previous months. Sony's portable was still the biggest-seller though at 26,681 units to 24,649.

The success of Yakuza did little to affect PlayStation 3 sales, with only a minor increase to 17,104.

Last Week This Week Title Format
New Entry 1 Yakuza Of The End PS3
1 2 Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D 3DS
3 3 Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS DS
4 4 Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Professional DS
2 5 One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP 3DS
New Entry 6 Gekiatsu!! Pachi Game Tamashi Vol. 1: CR Evangelion - Shinjitsu no Tsubasa PSP
13 7 Wii Party Wii
7 8 Akiba's Trip PSP
New Entry 9 Red Faction: Armageddon PS3
9 10 Patapon 3 PSP
Platform This Week Last Week
PSP 26,681 30,155
3DS 24,649 27,357
PlayStation 3 17,104 16,510
Wii 6,357 6,315
Nintendo DSi XL 5,283 5,452
Nintendo DSi 5,232 5,187
Xbox 360 2,370 2,499
PlayStation 2 1,291 1,228
Nintendo DS Lite 146 138
PSPgo 69 62

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...apanese-charts