Japanese Charts: Soccer Releases Dominate In Slow Week

Two new soccer simulations have dominated the new releases this week in the Japanese sales charts, although overall sales are relatively low. Konami’s J-League Winning Eleven 2008: Club Championship for the PlayStation 2 debuted at number one but sold only 79,000 units.

The game is not a full sequel though, to what is known in the West as Pro Evolution Soccer, but merely a minor local update.

More might have been expected of new franchise Inazuma Eleven on Nintendo DS though, which developer and publisher Level-5 have been heavily promoting with a spin-off manga, anime and a demo in the second Professor Layton title. The game entered the charts at number three, with 41,000 units sold.

The next highest new entry, at number seven, was Harukanaru Toki no Naka de: Yumenoukihashi - part of a successful series of dating simulators aimed at female users. Published by Koei, the DS game sold an initial 26,000 units.

The final new entry in the top 10 is Square Enix’s Sigma Harmonics for the DS. The new internally developed role-playing game sold 23,000 units upon its debut at number eight in the charts.

TW	LW	Title	Publisher	Format	Weekly Sales
1	NE	J-League Winning Eleven 2008: Club Championship	Konami	PS2	79,000
2	1	Rhythm Tengoku Gold	Nintendo	DS	57,000
3	NE	Inazuma Eleven	Level-5	DS	41,000
4	3	Dragon Quest V: Tenkuu no Hanayome	Square Enix	DS	32,000
5	2	Phantasy Star Portable	Sega	PSP	31,000
6	4	Wii Fit	Nintendo	Wii	30,000
7	NE	Harukanaru Toki no Naka de: Yumenoukihashi	Koei	DS	26,000
8	NE	Sigma Harmonics	Square Enix	DS	23,000
9	5	Mario Kart Wii	Nintendo	Wii	19,000
10	7	Daigasso! Band Brothers DX	Nintendo	DS	16,000

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