GAMERS HOUSE

the Monster Hunter franchise is practically the embodiment of "Big in Japan," a fact bolstered by Media Create's Japanese sales figures for the week of August 23-29. the latest entry in the series, a PSP spin-off centered around the off-duty exploits of Monster Hunter's cat-like helpers, topped the charts with more than four times the sales of the second-place title.

MonHun Nikki: Poka Poka Ailu Mura sold 256,076 copies for the week, and helped move plenty of new PSP systems in the process. Sony's handheld sold almost exactly doubled its week-over-week sales total, topping the hardware charts with 55,112 units sold. the PS3 came in second despite selling less than half as many systems as its handheld counterpart, with Nintendo's trifecta of the DSi LL (DSi XL in the West), DSi, and Wii once again coming in third through fifth, respectively.

the PSP's hardware performance was no doubt also bolstered by the other two new release games to hit the top 10. Namco Bandai's Ace Combat: Joint Assault flew as high as second place on the charts, finishing the week with sales of 57,785, while idea Factory's romantic adventure Hakuouki: Zuisouroku Portable landed in fifth with 24,469 sold. the PSP game arrived almost a year to the day after the original PlayStation 2 Hakuoki: Zuisouroku.

As for enduring sellers, Nintendo's Wii Party again showed its legs, coming in third with 54,673 copies sold, easily outpacing the previous week's best-seller, another Century's Episode R. the Namco Bandai PS3 game was forced to settle for fourth place with 28,354 games sold. the bottom half of the top 10 also featured a number of familiar faces, from Level Five's Inazuma Eleven 3 DS games to Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Capcom's Sengoku Basara 3.

Video Games DEALS OF THE DAY