While the West has been enjoying Yakuza 3 for a few weeks now, Japan is enjoying the forth title in the series. Sega has announced that during it’s first week of sales more than 500,000 copies of Yakuza 4 (Ryu ga Gotoku 4) were sold. In just seven days the game outsold Yakuza 3, which according to Weekly Famitsu sold a grand total of 499,436 copies up to the end of December 2009.
God of War III hits the headlines again this week with more sales related news. The title has not only outsold the previous two titles in week one sales, but has now broken the 1 million units mark. Sales for the title up to March 20th 2010 indicate that just over 1.1 million units were sold worldwide. In terms of regional breakdown around 700,000 units were sold in the Americas and 400,000 in Europe and Other Regions (excluding Japan).
Final Fantasy XIII has taken the UK by storm. Not only has the title topped the all-format video game chart, it has also become the fastest selling game this year, overtaking Battlefield: Bad Company 2. As for sales between the PS3 and Xbox 360, the PS3 has gained more sales but only slightly. Although specific numbers are not availabe, the PS3 accounts for 54% of the six-figure sales in the first week.
Feedback from Ubisoft latest Assassin’s Creed title has been “overwhelmingly positive”. Ubisoft has revealed that the game has sold over 1.6 million copies worldwide within its first week of release. While its not the same number as Modern Warfare 2 sold, the figure is up 32 percent on first week sales for the original Assassin’s Creed.
The PSPgo has given PSP sales a huge boost in North America. Sony has yet to release any hard numbers for the PSP Go, but according to Sony Computer Entertainment America, the latest PSP iteration is doing a great job of boosting sales for the PSP platform. In the three days since launch, sales have jumped 300% compared to the previous week.
Sony America chief Jack Tretton has expressed his delight over the PlayStation 3’s recent success at retail following the introduction of the price cut and revamped Slim model. “Skyrocketing sales, couldn’t be happier with the numbers that we’re seeing, and I think proof that there was tremendous consumer demand, they were just waiting for the price-point to come down,” Tretton told Forbes.
Square Enix is expecting high sales on their upcoming title, Final Fantasy XIII. The company is expecting global sales of over six million units, according to company CEO and president, Yoichi Wada. The executive hopes that the mammoth RPG outing will trump worldwide shipments of Square’s highly successful Dragon Quest IX, which hit Nintendo DS in Japan back in July of this year.
According to VGChartz’s preliminary data, the PlayStation 3 Slim sold around half a million units in the first week, which is a 400% increase week on week. In Europe, some regions saw as much as a tenfold increase in PS3 sales, and over 200,000 units were sold in “other regions” (Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia etc) according to their preliminary data. In Japan, reports have already been independently confirmed from Famitsu magazine of over 150,000 units sold – twice as much as the previous best week for PS3.
