VGChartz writes: "Its DQ week in Japan. Dragon Quest V (not some sort of Dairy Queen game) launched to enormous sales and has propelled DS into a virtual tie with the PSP this week. PS3 also saw a bit of a boost this week.
Anytime a main game in the Dragon Quest series (re)launches in Japan, you can expect a big week. The week ending July 20, 2008 was certainly no exception. Dragon Quest V, sold almost 700,000 units in its first week. Not to be outdone, PSP had a big release as well. Gundam Battle Universe sold nearly 160,000 units in its debut for the DS rival. Beyond those two biggies though, no game topped 50,000 though Tears to Tiara (PS3) came close to it. PS2, Xbox 360 & Wii software sales were relatively quiet compared to the other three platforms this week.
Key Points:
-With the launch of top selling software, as well as a new Metallic Blue PSP (launched July 17th ), hardware sales for DS & PSP are up significantly in the land of the rising sun (see below).
- Dragon Quest V accounted for roughly 50% more software sales than the next 19 games combined.
-This is one of the biggest sales weeks in Japan for 2008. In fact, this is the first week since mid April where two games in Japan topped 150,000 units.
Hardware Predicted Totals:
PSP: 65,000 to 80,000 unit range
DSL: 60,000 to 80,000 unit range
Wii: 40,000 to 50,000 unit range
PS3: 14,000 to 18,000 unit range
PS2: 8,000 to 12,000 unit range
360: 2,500 to 5,000 unit range
