This Week In Sales: Game Overload

The week of June 21st – 27th saw the release of several significant new titles in Japan, contributing toward a relatively healthy top-ten chart. At the #1 spot, Monster Hunter Frontier Online made its debut with close to 93,000 units. Not quite what you’d expect of a Monster Hunter title, but keep in mind, this one’s on the Xbox 360.

That said, it should be interesting to see if the release of the “slim” Xbox 360 does anything to help its longevity in the following week.

Hot on its heels was LovePlus +, which debuted at 84,364 units — almost double the opening numbers of its predecessor, released last year. Clearly, Konami’s marketing combined with positive word of mouth is working its charm. The same couldn’t be said for the similar Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 3rd Story, which opened at 52,000 units.

It would be unreasonable to draw comparisons between the two games as anything we could come up with in terms of the difference in audience or mainstream appeal would be entirely speculative. Let’s just say LovePlus appears to be the more mainstream brand and leave it at that.

The top-ten chart for the week of June 21st – 27th is as follows:

The new releases don’t stop there. Outside of the top-ten, Idea Factory put out two more releases this week, with Moujuutsukai to Oujisama (PS2) and D.C. Girl’s Symphony Pocket (PSP) debuting at #33 and #43 respectively. Meanwhile, Chaos; Head Noah, published by 5pb for the PSP, debuted at #17.

And finally, SNK released not one, but two King of Fighters games: The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match (Tougeki Version) for PS2 at #41 and The King of Fighters Portable 94-98: Chapter of Orochi close behind it at #42.