Supplies for Super Smash Bros. Brawl may have been more than a little tight in distribution channels during its first week of sales, but Japanese industry sales tracker Media Create can confirm that it was all for good reason; Nintendo and Sora's latest party brawler shot straight to the top of the video game charts in Japan during launch week. No less than 819,647 copies of SSBB were sold across the country during the week of January 28th to February 3rd, far outselling Devil May Cry 4 for the PlayStation 3. That said, Capcom's newcomer nevertheless secured second place with sweet sales of 205,390 units.

The PlayStation 2 still makes a strong showing in the top five with both Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut (featuring the option to play the game as the main character's pseudo-rival, Tales series heartthrob Lion/Leon Magnus) and Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi at third and fourth place, respectively. Limited Edition packages of the new Haruhi game also came with a Figma-brand figurine, which certainly helped boost sales for the title. Wii Fit also continues to be a fixture in Media Create's sales chart, rounding off the top five.

We see more newcomers dominate Media Create's software charts, including Disgaea 3 for the PS3 which made its debut at a very respectable sixth place, the Xbox 360 version of Devil May Cry 4, and the PS3 version of Assassin's Creed. Interestingly, the only DS title in Media Create's top ten this time around is the handheld port of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Perhaps this slow showing for the DS on the software side was also reflected in the sales for the hardware itself. The DS was not only overthrown from its lofty position by Nintendo's OTHER console, the Wii, but it was also beaten by Sony's PlayStation Portable to ultimately land in third place on last week's Japanese hardware ranking. It should be noted that sales for console hardware overall took a dive last week compared to the weeks before.

Japan Weekly Software Sales 2008/01/28 - 2008/02/03

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) - 819,647 units
2. Devil May Cry 4 (PS3) - 205,390 units
3. Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut (PS2) - 116,928 units
4. Suzumiya Haruhi no Tomadoi (PS2) - 114,335 units
5. Wii Fit (Wii) - 73,325 units
6. Makai Senki Disgaea 3 (PS3) - 54,596 units
7. Devil May Cry 4 (Xbox 360) - 40,023 units
8. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) - 34,474 units
9. Assassin's Creed (PS3) - 27,895 units
10. World Soccer Winning Eleven Evolution Ubiquitous Edition 2008 (PSP) - 25,523 units

Japan Weekly Hardware Sales 2008/01/28 - 2008/02/03

1. Nintendo Wii - 94,473 units
2. Sony PSP - 72,528 units
3. Nintendo DS Lite 67,472 units
4. Sony PS3 - 41,796 units
5. Sony PS2 - 12,115 units
6. Microsoft Xbox 360 - 6,060 units