Members of the Westboro Baptist Church say Dio 'is currently residing in hell'

May 23, 2010 - Ronnie James Dio’s public memorial on May 30 looks set to be disrupted by US religious cult the Westboro Baptist Church, who oppose his supposed links with the devil.

67-year-old Dio passed away on May 16 after losing his battle with cancer.

Square Enix's Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 saw a drop in weekly sales in Japan, but was able to lead charts for the third week in a row, followed once again by Konami and Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

For the week ended May 16, tracking firm Media Create said the DS role-playing game Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 sold 126,000 units. That's down from the game's debut week, which saw 624,000 in unit sales, and its second week, which saw 253,000 units.

Coming in second was Kojima's Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for PSP, selling 63,000 units during the week, versus 434,000 when the game debuted and 141,000 units last week.

To date, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 has sold just over 1 million units in Japan, while Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has sold 638,000 units. Both games launched on April 28 in the country.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii, released in Japan in December last year, continued to hang near the top of the charts with 19,000 units sold during the week. The game has sold over 3.8 million units in Japan.

Games that fell off of the top 10 list include the DS game Pokemon Ranger: Tracks of Light and Wii Sports Resort, which were ousted from the top 10 by new entries Haku Ouki Yugiroku from Idea Factory and 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa from EA.

Below are Media Create's weekly Japanese charts for the week ended May 16, 2010:

The hard rock community was in a state of mourning as artists and fans rushed to pay tribute to iconic elder statesman Ronnie James Dio, born to an Italian-American family in New Hampshire as Ronald James Padavona, who died on Sunday at the age of 67 from stomach cancer.

NPD Results: Splinter Cell, Pokemon Top April Charts - Super Street Fighter IV also manages to crack top ten, in its premiere month.

The NPD Group has released its videogame sales results for the month of April, confirming earlier reports that Splinter Cell: Conviction was the best-selling game at 486,100 units.

Nintendo's Pokemon SoulSilver and Pokemon HeartGold, in their second month on the chart, sold a combined 435,500 copies - 242,900 and 192,600, respectively.

In this week's Japanese software sales charts, Snake will settle for second place again this week in the battle of Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The two portable games sit comfortably at the top the software weekly sales chart.

The two games hold spots one and two again, with a string of Nintendo favorites — New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Tomodachi Collection, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit Plus — securing the next four spots. More recent releases like Nier Replicant and Super Street Fighter IV for the PlayStation 3 manage to keep their top ten spots.

Not much activity in this week's Media Create charts, as Japanese software companies opted not to release any new and noteworthy games this week. Look for recent releases and old favorites (Super Smash Bros. Brawl!) in the top 30 bestsellers list for the week of May 5 to 9, 2010.

01. Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 (DS) - 253,000 / 877,000
02. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP) - 141,000 / 575,000
03. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) - 47,000 / 3,807,000
04. Tomodachi Collection (DS) - 33,000 / 3,191,000
05. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) - 32,000 / 2,771,000
06. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) - 23,000 / 1,891,000
07. Super Street Fighter IV (PS3) - 20,000 / 101,000
08. Pokemon Ranger: Hikari no Kiseki (DS) - 20,000 / 446,000
09. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) - 16,000 / 1,887,000
10. Nier Replicant (PS3) - 16,000 / 97,000

Much more, including the hardware numbers, after the break..

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You can win a copy of the Collector's Edition of StarCraft II : Wings of Liberty a $100.00 value.
The contest is called King of the Mountain and it is simple; just be at the top of the Arcade Leader Board by the end of Contest (July 15, 2010) and win. The contest has no purchase necessary to win, just sign-up and play.

The recently stagnant Japanese sales charts finally saw some excitement last week with the release of three high-profile video games for three different platforms.

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Super Street Fighter IV debuted in the top three positions on Media Create's weekly Japanese sales charts for the week ended May 2.

Square Enix's DS game Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 led the rankings with unit sales of 624,000 units. The game is a spinoff of the highly-popular Dragon Quest role-playing franchise, and involves gathering and raising monsters. The original Joker released in Japan in 2006, and a year later in the U.S.

Following Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 was Konami and Hideo Kojima's latest, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for PSP. While the title enjoyed strong sales, it still came in nearly 200,000 units behind Joker 2, with 434,000 units sold during the week, although it did release a day later.

Super Street Fighter IV also debuted during the week, selling 81,000 units on PS3 and 28,000 on Xbox 360. The title is a substantially updated version of the 2008 hit Street Fighter IV.
Last week's number one game, Square Enix and Cavia's Nier Replicant for PS3 dropped to number nine this most recent week.

Games that fell off the list from the prior week were the PSP games Tokyo Mono Hara Shi: Karasu No Mori Gakuen Kitan from Atlus, Falcom's Ys: The Oathin Felghana, Konami's Pro Baseball Spirits 2010, Nintendo's DS game Pokemon Ranger: Tracks of Light and Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion -- Game of the Year Edition for PS3.

Below are Media Create's weekly Japanese charts (thanks this week to andriasang.com):

Weekly Ranking, 04/26/2010 to 05/02/2010

01 Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 Square Enix 624000
02 Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Konami 434000
03 Super Street Fighter IV Capcom 81000 (PS3)
04 New Super Mario Brothers Wii Nintendo 44000 (total 3760000)
05 Super Street Fighter IV Capcom 28000 (XBox)
06 Mario Kart Wii Nintendo 28000 (total 2739000)
07 Friend Collection Nintendo 27000 (total 3157000)
08 Katei Kyoshi Hitman Reborn! DS Fate of Heat III Yuki no Shugosha Raishu! Takara Tomy 24000
09 NieR RepliCant Square Enix 21000 (total 81000)
10 Wii Fit Plus Nintendo 20000 (total 1867000)

More after the break..

Nier Replicant on the Playstation 3, despite some supply problems in its launch week, was still able to become the best-selling game in Japan for the week that ended on April 25th 2010. This knocks New Super Mario Wii off its pedestal as the top game.

There were a handful of other releases and re-releases scoring top ten showings, including the "Game of the Year" edition of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and the latest Ys role-playing game for the PSP. The rest of the Media Create top ten contains mostly evergreen Nintendo titles, like New Super Mario Bros., edging ever closer to the 4 million mark in Japan, and Nintendo DS game Tomodachi Collection.

You can view the top 30 rankings with the estimated sales data below:

1. Nier Replicant (Playstation 3) – 60,000
2. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo Wii) – 29,000 (3,715,000 total)
3. Tokyo Mono Harashi: Karasu no Mori Gakuen Kitan (PSP) – 22,000
4. Tomodachi Collection (Nintendo DS) – 20,000 (3,131,000 total)
5. Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSP) – 16,000
6. Professional Baseball Spirits 2010 (PSP) – 16,000 (118,000 total)
7. Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo Wii) – 15,000 (1,848,000 total)
8. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo Wii) – 14,000 (2,711,000 total)
9. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition (Playstation 3) – 12,000
10. Pokémon Ranger: Path of Light (Nintendo DS) -12,000 (409,000 total)

The Xbox 360 counterpart, Nier Gestalt, was the 11th best-selling game of the week. Nier Gestalt was released in North America for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on April 27th under the simplified title of “Nier.”

We'll have more after a short timeout..

The four-and-a-half month old Super Mario Bros. Wii topped sales charts for the second week in a row in Japan, as a weak release list led to another sales decline for the week ended April 18.

Media Create said Thursday that New Super Mario Bros. Wii sold 32,000 units during the week. Last week the game, released in Japan in early December 2009, led the charts with just 37,000 units sold.

To date, in Japan, New Super Mario Bros. Wii has sold 3.7 million units, according to Media Create. The continually strong-selling Nintendo DS game Friend Collection sold 21,000 units for the week, bringing total Japanese sales to 3.1 million.

The only two new additions to the weekly Japanese sales charts were the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Marvelous and Grasshopper Manufacture's No More Heroes' Paradise, a high-definition port of the 2007 (2008 in the U.S.) M-rated Wii game, No More Heroes.

The PS3 version of the game sold 16,000 units, while the Xbox 360 version sold 15,000, enabling the two SKUs to capture the seventh and eighth slots on the top 10.

Games that fell out of the top 10 from last week were Capcom's PSP game Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP Best) and Atlus' DS game Etrian Odyssey III.

Below is Media Create's top software unit sales chart for the week ended April 18, 2010:

More after the break.. stay tuned.