Japan Charts: Online Winning Eleven title storms in at number one

Konami's new online football title Winning Eleven 8: Liveware Evolution has gone straight in at number one in the Japanese software ranking - while the Nintendo DS has overtaken the PSP again in the hardware charts.

PS2 exclusive Winning Eleven 8: Liveware Evolution adds a number of additional features to last year's massive-selling football title, most notably an online play service, and racked up 238,000 sales in its first weekend on sale.

It was followed at number two by Sony's new RPG title, Wild Arms: The 4th Detonator, with the latest instalment in the popular Wild West themed series selling around 131,000 units.

Much of the rest of the top ten is also dominated by new releases. The Nintendo DS has two new titles in the chart, namely Kirby Canvas Curse DS at number three and Square Enix' Egg Monster Hero at number six, which join last week's new entry Harvest Moon: Colobockle Station, which drops this week to number nine.

By contrast, there's only one PSP title in the top ten ranking, with Sony's anime-licensed Bleach: Beat the Soul in at number five, marking a solid debut for the first game to be based on the hugely successful new TV series.

In terms of hardware sales, the Nintendo DS overtakes the PSP for the first time in a few months thanks to the launch of two new colours; the DS this week has 35 per cent market share, compared to 27 per cent for PSP and just over 25 per cent for the PS2.

Remarkably, the Game Boy Advance continues to sell quite well, and has almost 10 per cent market share - although with the only title of note in the last few weeks being Donkey Konga 3, the Cube is distinctly foundering, with just under three per cent share.

Although it was driven by the launch of a couple of new hardware colours, the fact that the DS managed to overtake the PSP by such a margin is still significant. Sony's platform still faces an uphill battle to overtake sales of the DS in Japan alone, never mind worldwide, and the more Nintendo can narrow the gap on a week to week basis, the longer it's going to remain on top in the next-gen handheld battle.