As one would expect of a good Monster Hunter clone, Namco Bandai’s God Eater has gotten off to a strong start in its first three days in the Japanese market. According to Media Create numbers — Enterbrain’s, which we usually rely on, aren’t available yet — God Eater topped the weekly sales chart during the week of its release with 295,405 units.
Close behind it was Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie for the DS at 189,802 in its second week. First week sales amounted to 906,458 units. Interestingly, Japanese game store Games Maya’s manager pointed out that God Eater seemed primarily aimed at middle and high schoolers, while Dragon Quest was selling mainly to adults early on.
Since their target markets are so different, and its closest competitor, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker doesn’t release until April 29, God Eater has over two months to let word of mouth boost its sales. For reference, the demo got over 1 million downloads.
Two weeks ago, we wondered out loud if Star Ocean: The Last Hope would fare better on the Playstation 3 than it did on the Xbox 360. Judging by early numbers, it’s safe to say, no. Star Ocean: The Last Hope International sold 166,027 units during its first week on the 360. While on the PS3, it only managed around 72,026 units. Part of the reason for slow sales could be that most consumers who wanted to play the game played it on the Xbox 360 a year ago.
Meanwhile, Tri-Ace’s other RPG, Resonance of Fate sold 118,808 units in its first week on PS3 and 27,048 on the Xbox 360, debuting at the #2 and #8 positions respectively. A week later, the PS3 version dropped further down the charts to #7, while the Xbox version plummeted to #22.Of course, compared to Brownie Brown and Marvelous Entertainment’s Livly Garden for DS (6,200 first week, then vanished without a trace), which debuted alongside, that isn’t so bad…
The top-ten for the week of Feb 1 – 7 is as follows:
| LW | TW | Title | Tw sales | Tot. sales | Sys. | Publisher |
| New | 01. | God Eater | 295,405 | New | PSP | Namco Bandai |
| 01. | 02. | Dragon Quest VI | 189,802 | 1,096,260 | DS | Square Enix |
| New | 03. | Star Ocean: The Last Hope Int. | 72,026 | New | PS3 | Square Enix |
| 03. | 04. | New Super Mario Bros. Wii | 62,174 | 3,263,191 | Wii | Nintendo |
| 05. | 05. | Tomodachi Collection | 27,104 | 1,610,154 | DS | Nintendo |
| 06. | 06. | Wii Fit Plus | 27,104 | 1,610,154 | Wii | Nintendo |
| 02. | 07. | Resonance of Fate | 25,460 | 143,548 | PS3 | Sega |
| New | 08. | Pop n’ Music Portable | 19,138 | New | PSP | Konami |
| 07. | 09. | Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep | 14,780 | 727,938 | PSP | Square Enix |
| 11. | 10. | Wii Sports Resort | 13,314 | 1,735,000 | Wii | Nintendo |
Dragon Quest IX, according to another source, sold another 2,500 (approx.) units last week. It’s well over 4 million at this point. Final Fantasy XIII clung on just a little higher in the chart at over 3,500 units as well. It’s still somewhere in the range of 1.8 – 1.9 million.
Compared to Dragon Quest IX and even Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, FFXIII seems like a terribly inefficient use of time and resources. How the game performs in the west will probably dictate whether or not the project was worth the time and effort spent on it.
Chart sourced from Media Create. Going forward, we’ll be referencing M-C charts and our other sources, rather than Enterbrain, who take far longer to publish their numbers.
