Big in Japan: August 17-23: DS Mii game tops charts

For two months, Nintendo's Tomodachi Collection on the DS has been among the five best-selling games on Media Create's Japanese software sales charts but always came up short to titles like Dragon Quest IX, Monster Hunter Tri, and Wii Sports Resort. That streak is over, because the industry tracking firm's figures for the week of August 17-23 put Tomodachi Collection on top with 82,504 sold.

Published by Nintendo, Tomodachi Collection lets players explore a remote island city with Miis imported from their Wiis or with original Miis created in the DS game. The game was originally released in mid-June.

The previous weeks' top titles didn't fall too far, as Dragon Quest IX and Monster Hunter Tri took the second and third spots, respectively. Other recent best-sellers on the chart included Wii Sports Resort at five and SD Gundam G Generation Wars for the PlayStation 2 at six. In the midst of that row of chart-toppers at the four spot was the new PS2 installment of the Melty Blood fighting franchise, Actress Again.

On the hardware front, sales sagged across the board. The DSi's 59,579 systems sold was enough to best all comers once again but was down significantly from nearly 88,000 for the week prior. On the other end of the spectrum was the PlayStation 3, which posted a meager 2,052 system sales for the week, less than half the 4,907 it had sold the week before.

There are some extenuating circumstances that add context to that figure. Just one day into the reporting week, Sony officially revealed the PS3 Slim but announced it wouldn't see release in Japan until September 3. Supplies of legacy PS3 models may have also been in short supply; Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter told VG24/7 earlier this month that Japanese retailers had stopped receiving shipments of the system in anticipation of the new hardware.

Week of August 17-August 23, 2009
Software:
1) Tomodachi Collection (DS) - 82,504
2) Dragon Quest IX (DS) - 79,103
3) Monster Hunter Tri (Wii) - 51,101
4) Melty Blood: Actress Again (PS2) - 44,292
5) Wii Sports Resort (Wii) - 32,380
6) SD Gundam G Generation Wars (PS2) - 25,740
7) Ookami Kakushi (PSP) - 22,655
8) Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP) - 17,933
9) PuyoPuyo 7 (DS) - 17,920
10) Kiniro no Corda 2 f Encore (PSP) - 13,958

Hardware:
DSi - 59,578
PSP - 27,187
Wii - 26,972
Xbox 360 - 8,979
DS Lite - 5,735
PS2 - 3,295
PS3 - 2,052