Japan Software Charts: Dragon Quest Slays Competition

Japanese buying habits have perked up this week, thanks to the arrival of several new games in the Media Create software charts (25th - 31st January 2010). The big winner here is clearly Square Enix's retread of Dragon Quest VI for the Nintendo DS – a brand that simply prints money in the land of the rising sun. It has already shifted close to a million copies in its first week on sale.

1 Dragon Quest VI – Square Enix (DS) – 906,458
2 End of Eternity – Sega (PS3) – 118,088
3 New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Nintendo (Wii) – 83,930
4 Ar tonelico III: Sekai Shuuen no Hikigane wa Shoujo no Uta ga Hajiku – Namco Bandai (PS3) – 81,633
5 Tomodachi Collection – Nintendo (DS) – 45,474
6 Wii Fit Plus – Nintendo (Wii) – 32,888
7 Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep – Square Enix (PSP) – 30,225
8 End of Eternity – Sega (360) – 27,048
9 Valkyria Chronicles 2 – Sega (PSP) – 24,048
10 MAG – SCEJ (PS3) – 19,139

(Note: Chart position is first, then game name, publisher, format and sales for this week)

It's a more colourful chart all around this week compared to the Nintendomination we saw about a month ago. Tri-Ace's new RPG, End of Eternity (aka Resonance of Fate in the West – check out our preview of the game) has done exceptionally well on the PS3 by hitting #2, and even helped bring an Xbox 360 title into the Top 10.

The PlayStation 3 has more of a presence thanks to the efforts of two more new releases hitting the charts, with Namco Bandai's Ar tonelico III (again with the hilariously lengthy title) debuting at #4 and an impressive sales count of 81,000.

The big surprise is Zipper Interactive's MAG, which creeps in at #10 this week. Could Square Enix president Yoichi Wada be right when he talks about Japan's growing acceptance of Western games? Guess we'll have to see next week, when MAG will either still be clinging on to the Top 10, or plummeting out of existence.