The PS3 update of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd sold more than a quarter million copies in its debut week in Japan. Quite good. But not nearly as good as the 1.9 million copies the PSP version sold during its first week on the market. Still, pretty good news for Sony and Capcom.
Media Create’s top 10 sales chart was dominated by PSP and PS3 software, with a ton of new Japanese-flavored games debuting in the top five. Gundam stuff. Musou stuff. Just no Gundam Musou stuff.
Read on for the top 20 games in Japan for the week of August 22 to 28, courtesy of sales tracker Media Create.
01. Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD Version (PS3) – 287,829 / NEW
02. Black * Rock Shooter: The Game (PSP) – 105,277 / NEW
03. Mobile Suit Gundam: Shin Gihren no Yabou (PSP) – 75,611 / NEW
04. Sengoku Musou 3 Empires (PS3) – 70,254 / NEW
05. Shin Sangoku Musou 6 Special (PSP) – 25,308 / NEW
06. Rhythm Heaven Wii (Wii) – 25,063 / 399,552
07. MonHun Nikki: Poka Poka Ailu Mura G (PSP) – 23,151 / 162,416
08. Kirby Mass Attack (DS) – 18,901 / 181,224
09. Pokemon Super Scramble (3DS) – 15,764 / 134,201
10. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS) – 13,423 / 348,964
11. Wii Sports Resort with Wii Remote (Wii)
12. Suite PreCure: Melody Collection (DS)
13. Durarara!! 3way Standoff: Alley (PSP)
14. Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel: Toki to Sekai no Meikyuu (PSP)
15. Toriko: Gourmet Survival (PSP)
16. J-League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! 7 Euro Plus (PSP)
17. Taiko no Tatsujin Portable DX (PSP)
18. Persona 3 Portable “The Best” (PSP)
19. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves “The Best” (PS3)
20. Pokemon Black / White (DS)
On the hardware front, the cheaper Nintendo 3DS reigns supreme, selling nearly twice its closest competitor, the PlayStation 3. Hopefully for Nintendo, that’ll mean more 3DS games (other than The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D) showing up in the software bestsellers chart.
Nintendo 3DS – 60,781
PlayStation 3 – 33,141
PSP – 31,310
Wii – 11,342
Nintendo DSi LL – 3235
Nintendo DSi – 2384
PlayStation 2 – 1580
Xbox 360 – 1393
Nintendo DS Lite – 110
PSP go – 20
marksman52
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 1:41 PMim so looking forward to this game!!
Butface
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 1:48 PMThey haven’t announced a localization for the west, which is a real shame. There needs to be some firmware update for the Ad-Hoc party on western PS3s before it can come here without changing content. MHtri was one of the best games for the Wii, so a bigger version of that in HD, even with the odd porting stuff, would be brilliant.
Ynefel
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 2:11 PMCapcom has been really tight on info regarding localisation for MHP3rd, particularly on PSP, since that came out in Japan almost a year ago.
The hopes are there might be an announcement regarding localisation at TGS this year, say MHP3rd G or something similar. Personally I hope they attend to the PSP version first.
MHFU/2nd G is the most extensive Monster Hunter to date, but has a relatively small market in the West. =( This could affect their decision to localise 3rd…..
Fenixius
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 1:44 PMOf course 360 does poorly in Japan; it doesn’t get Japan-exclusive anime/manga tie-ins. Clearly the Japanese taste is radically different to the Western experience; maybe they should offer their wares to the other side of the Pacific and see how they do there.
Braaains
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 1:57 PMIt doesn’t get those titles because nobody owns the console, so there’s no point spending money developing 360 versions of games when there’s no 360 market in Japan and the game won’t sell to 360 owners outside of Japan.
They’ve had plenty of Japan-centric titles (mainly JRPGs) exclusive to 360. It didn’t work, though, because people quickly cottoned on to the fact that when MS say “exclusive” they mean “exclusive for a few months. The developers will use those few months and the money we paid them for timed-exclusivity to produce a superior PS3 port”.
MS need to invest in creating or buying some Japanese studios to produce 360-exclusive (and that means exclusive, not timed-exclusive) games specifically for the Japanese market if they want to get anywhere over there. Although it’s too late for the 360 now, but they should do it in time for the launch of their next console.
Neo-Kaiser
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 2:03 PMYou know how there’s this current theory that gamers today always buy the same thing over and over again because they don’t want to try anything different? An exaggeration since people do play different games. But in Japan it’s pretty much cemented. They refuse to purchase or try anything new. That’s why Japan is more likely to release sequels, because the audience don’t want to try anything new. It’s why the Metroid series didn’t do well them with Prime. Too different from previous games.
Mr Waffle
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 7:32 PM“Clearly the Japanese taste is radically different to the Western experience”
My Japanese mates who come over and play Halo would probably disagree.
Chazz
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 8:14 PMThe general population of gamers in Japan probably wouldn’t :P
PrettyTones
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 2:16 PMPSP go – 20
That made me chuckle.
Ben
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 3:18 PMCan we get a translation on the MH titles? I’d kill to buy one and check it out on PS3. Would also love to see a Tales localized on PS3 since we got Vesperia for 360 but missed the PS3 rerelease with Patti and Flynn that Japan got
monstersluz
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 6:55 PMgod damn it i want this!
Paul
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 7:25 PMXbox360… LOL
AerintheADEQUATE
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 11:01 PMGreat, I’m glad they enjoy it… can we have it now?
Sleeper
Sunday, September 4, 2011 at 2:14 PM20 GOs!
That must have almost tripled Sony’s profit of the device.