Big in Japan Feb. 15-21: Resident Evil 5 Gold gets the gold

After two weeks on top of the Japanese sales charts, Namco Bandai's PSP game God Eater was dethroned by another game about insatiable hunger. According to Japanese tracking firm Media Create, Capcom's zombie redux Resident Evil 5 Alternative Edition (called Gold Edition in the US) was the best-selling game for the week of February 15-21, selling 143,339 copies in its retail debut.

Resident Evil 5: Alternative Edition includes all of the downloadable content released for the original survival horror game, as well as compatibility with the PlayStation 3 motion-sensing controller. Unfortunately, it will be some time before gamers know how well that compatibility works, because Sony won't be releasing the peripheral until the fall.

Though the Monster Hunter-like God Eater relinquished the top spot, it didn't fall very far. The multiplayer action game sold 64,192 copies for the week, more than enough to hold off a trio of sales-chart-loitering titles for Nintendo's systems: New Super Mario Bros. Wii (44,415 sold), Dragon Quest VI for the DS (41,412 sold), and Tomodachi Collection (31,299 sold).

Resident Evil 5: Alternative Edition wasn't the only game new to the top 10 for the week. Quantic Dream's PlayStation 3-exclusive noir-tinged thriller Heavy Rain was the sixth-best-seller of the week, selling 26,775 copies. Konami's Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2010 Reverse of Arcadia for the DS also made its first appearance on the charts, selling 24,132 copies for the week.

Sony was the big winner on the hardware charts, with the PSP outselling every other system for the seventh straight week and the PS3 leapfrogging the Wii and DSi LL (called the DSi XL in the West) to land in second. The chart position for Sony's portable has benefitted not just from a lineup of best-selling new releases like God Eater and Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, but also from Nintendo's segmentation of the DS lineup of systems. Combining sales of the DSi LL, the DSi, and the DS Lite, Nintendo's portables outsell even the PSP by more than 12,000 units.

JAPAN GAME SALES WEEK OF FEBRUARY 15-21, 2010
Software:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Platform / Unit sales
1) Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition / Capcom / PS3 / 143,339
2) God Eater / Bandai Namco / PSP / 64,192
3) New Super Mario Bros. Wii / Nintendo / Wii / 44,415
4) Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie / Square Enix / DS / 41,412
5) Tomodachi Collection / Nintendo / DS / 31,299
6) Heavy Rain / Sony / PS3 / 26,775
7) Wii Fit Plus / Nintendo / Wii / 25,631
8) Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2010 Reverse of Arcadia / Konami / DS / 24,132
9) Star Ocean: The Last Hope: International / Square Enix / PS3 / 15,097
10) Wii Sports Resort / Nintendo / Wii / 11,303

Hardware:
PSP - 32,796
PS3 - 32,130
Wii - 31,652
DSi LL - 24,388
DSi - 15,380
DS Lite - 5,053
Xbox 360 - 2,453
PS2 - 1,883
PSP Go - 1,371