Big in Japan Oct. 25-31: Gods Eater Burst

North American game retailers are being assaulted with high-profile new releases these days, and they're not alone. According to research firm Media Create, new releases accounted for five of the 10 best-selling games in Japan for the week of October 25-31. The week before, debuts took up six spots on the charts.

It seems Japanese gamers have a sweet tooth for divinity.

The biggest release of the week was Gods Eater Burst, the second installment in Namco Bandai's multiplayer action series for the PSP. The four-player monster hunting formula paid off for the publisher again. Just eight months after the original God Eater sold more than 295,000 in its debut week, Burst arrived to sales of 263,150 copies. Konami's latest installment in the Winning Eleven series (Pro Evolution Soccer in North America) was a close second, as the PlayStation 3 edition of the multiplatform soccer sim sold 215,257.

Nintendo was well represented with releases both new and old. The previous week's chart topper, Super Mario All-Stars for the Wii, led the charge with a third place finish, followed by DS role-playing games Pokemon Black and White and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn in fourth and fifth, and Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii in sixth. Wii Party, the latest of the console maker's "evergreen" hits to take up long-term residence on the sales charts, finished in 10th place.

Microsoft also scored a rare top 10 finish for the week. Lionhead's latest, Fable III, sold 20,025 copies at launch, good enough for the Xbox 360-exclusive action adventure game to secure eighth place.

The hardware race was reshuffled a bit this week, as sales were up almost across the board. Only the aged DS Lite saw its unit sales slip, while its successor, the DSi, more than doubled its numbers week-over-week. The DSi's 32,2137 units sold was good enough for second place, as the PSP continued its strong run in Japan with another 38,874 sold. The Sony portable's UMD-less cousin, the PSP Go, saw the largest sales spike for the week in terms of percentage, as it more than tripled the previous week's sub-1,000 performance to finish with 3,031 units sold. While not exactly a chart topper, it was still good enough to get the system out of the sales chart cellar and ahead of both the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox 360.

JAPAN GAME SALES WEEK OF OCTOBER 25-31, 2010
Software:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Platform / Unit sales
1. Gods Eater Burst / Namco Bandai / PSP / 263,150
2. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2011 / Konami / PS3 / 215,257
3. Super Mario All-Stars / Nintendo / Wii / 119,485
4. Pokemon Black and White / The Pokemon Company / DS / 68,686
5. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn / Nintendo / DS / 46,516
6. Kirby's Epic Yarn / Nintendo / Wii / 25,257
7. Solatorobo: Sore kara Coda e / Namco Bandai / DS / 21,915
8. Fable III / Microsoft / 360 / 20,025
9. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 / Namco Bandai / PS3 / 19,090
10. Wii Party / Nintendo / Wii / 17,337

Hardware:
PSP - 38,874
DSi LL - 32,137
PS3 - 28,255
DSi - 23,614
Wii - 12,710
DS Lite - 3,375
PSP Go - 3,031
Xbox 360 - 2,669
PS2 - 1,400