Released on the 10th of July, Square Enix’s first offering for the Wii, Dragon Quest Swords, sold 305 thousand copies in the week of the 9th to the 15th of July, according to video game sales tracker, Media Create. According to reports, the shipment figure was 350 thousand, which means the game has all but sold out of its initial shipment to retailers.

A large number of games entered the charts in the week, with Nintendo’s My Housekeeping Diary taking third place with 47 thouasand copies sold. Also released were Konami’s Kirarin Revolution: Mezase Idol Queen! in eigth, Tecmo’s Monster Farm DS in ninth and Capcom’s Mega Man ZX Advent in tenth place, all for the Nintendo DS. Chibi Robo! Park Patrol managed to hold on to a position in the top ten for a second week, while the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass hardly dropped at all in sales from last week and kept steady at the top of the charts, only dropping one place to number two. Wii Sports and Wii Play keep their resident chart slots, while the recently named in English Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day continues to perform well on the charts - this week at position five with 39 thousand copies sold.

Increase in hardware sales all round

In hardware news, the Wii was up a sizeable amount from 75 to 110 thousand on the back of Dragon Quest Swords sales, and perhaps also because Nintendo shipped a larger shipment in anticipation of higher demand for the console due to Square Enix’s title. The DS held stead at a massive 142 thousand units sold while all members of the PlayStation family climbed a little in sales from last week.

Some big titles out in the next few weeks

The coming week sees the release of Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball on PlayStation 2 and Wii, but all eyes are on next week’s releases as Sony releases Hot Shots Golf 5 for the PS3, and Nintendo releases Mario Party 8 for the Wii. Being released on the 26th along with those are Konami’s Dewy’s Adventure for the Wii and Spike’s Major League Baseball for PS3 and PS2.

Interestingly, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for the PSP sees it’s release in Japan (published by Capcom) in the same week, as well as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on the 360, published by Spike. The 27th of July sees the release of Square Enix’s anticipated DS title, It’s a Wonderful World.

Hardware chart

Software chart

Upcoming Titles

Special thanks to: Media Create, Play-asia.com, NeoGAF, Dengeki and Google for the information and translations of Japanese game titles