Japan: Nintendo 3DS and Animal Crossing Reign Supreme

The Nintendo-made 3DS handheld is once again the bestselling piece of hardware on the Japanese market, while the late 2012 launch Animal Crossing: New Leaf, another product from the same company, is on the first place in the software top ten.

The 3DS LL, which sports a bigger screen and more battery life, has managed to sell 56,377 units during the seven-day period, according to data from Media Create reported by Gematsu.

This is a steep decline when compared to the 156,184 that the handheld has managed during the previous seven-day period, for the first week of 2013.

The normal version of the device is also doing well, but saw a bigger drop in sales, going from 123,075 to just 36,284.

Third place is occupied, as it has been in the last few months, by the PlayStation 3 from Sony, with sales of 22,991 units for the week, a little over a third of what it managed during the previous tracked period.

The Wii U might be a new home console, but it’s not selling very well, with just 20,175 units delivered to players after a week when the console managed to stay over 67,000.

The PSP is once again beating the more recent Vita in terms of sales, 17,069 to 11,088, and the older Wii and Xbox 360 close down the Japanese hardware chart.

Sales of 83,220 have put Animal Crossing: New Leaf at the top of the video game chart in the country, ahead of another Nintendo game, New Super Mario Bros 2, with sales of 21,784.

The rest of the top ten includes: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Run For Money: Flee From the Strongest Hunters in History, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Inazuma Eleven Go 2: Chrono Stone Reimei, Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2, New Super Mario Bros. U, Nintendo Land and Taiko Drum Master: Chibi Dragon and the Mysterious Orb.