Big in Japan April 18-24: Pokemon Typing DS

It has been weeks since Pokemon Black and White last appeared in the top 10 of Media Create's Japanese sales charts, but it's impossible to keep the collectible critters at bay for long. Nintendo's pugnacious pocket monsters returned to the top 10 for the week of April 18-24, as Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS claimed the top spot on the charts with 59,363 copies sold.

As the name suggests, Pokemon Typing DS is a typing tutorial game for Nintendo's dual-screened handheld. But rather than cram a keyboard onto the system's touch screen, the game comes bundled with a full QWERTY keyboard that connects with the system wirelessly using Bluetooth. The game includes drills to bring players up to speed on the home row keys, teach them the Roman alphabet, and challenge them to accurately type the names of various Pokemon.

Other notable new entries on the best-seller chart include Sony's SOCOM 4: US Navy SEALs and Konami's Otomedius Excellent. Sony's squad-based military first-person shooter sold 12,613 copies, enough to place eighth on the weekly sales chart. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360-exclusive spawn of Konami's seminal side-scrolling shoot-'em-up Gradius debuted in 10th place with 10,502 copies sold.

The 3DS's second reign atop the hardware sales chart proved to be a short one, as Nintendo's new handheld relinquished the top spot to the PSP after a single week. Sony's portable retook the title with authority, as its 49,162 units sold was more than double the second-place 3DS's total of 23,038 sold. The PlayStation 3 was once again in third place with 19,033 sold, while the Wii continued to lag behind with 7,866 sold.

JAPAN GAME SALES WEEK OF APRIL 18-24
Software:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Platform / Unit sales
1. Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS / Nintendo / DS / 59,363
2. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Professional / Square Enix / DS / 45,397
3. Dai-2-Ji Super Robot Taisen Z Hakai-hen / Namco / PSP / 44,973
4. Pro Baseball Spirits 2011 / Konami / PSP / 27,931
5. Pro Baseball Spirits 2011 / Konami / PS3 / 24,365
6. Meitantei Conan: Aoki Houseki no Rinbukyoku/ Namco / DS / 19,786
7. GachiTora! Abarenbou Kyoushi in High School / Spike / PSP / 13,560
8. SOCOM 4: US Navy SEALs / Sony / PS3 / 12,613
9. Pilotwings Resort / Nintendo / 3DS / 10,675
10. Otomedius Excellent / Konami / 360 / 10,502

Hardware:
PSP - 49,162
3DS - 23,038
PS3 - 19,033
Wii - 7,866
DSi LL - 7,064
DSi - 6,214
Xbox 360 - 1,891
PS2 - 1,163
DS Lite - 283
PSP Go - 265