Star Ocean 4 breaks first week sales for Xbox 360 in Japan

Star Ocean: The Last Hope breaks first week sales for the Xbox 360 in Japan.

According to Famitsu.com, the timed Xbox 360 exclusive Star Ocean 4 has sold 166,027 copies in its first week of sales; that is, from its release on February 19th through to the 22nd.

It's unclear whether the game is the week's best seller, but it appears to have already bested Street Fighter IV's first week sales in the region.

Star Ocean 4 represents the best launch sales for an Xbox 360 game, with last year's The Last Remnant (also from developer Tri-Ace) selling 101,000 in its first week.

The title also looks like it's set to be the console's best overall selling title in Japan, with 2007's Blue Dragon (203,740 sold) being the game to beat.

The Xbox 360 only managed to post one game in 2008's top 100 games sold in Japan - Tales of Vesperia (161,070). You can find the Xbox 360's top 30 software sales since launch in Japan after this link.

Star Ocean 4 also prompted promising hardware sales for Microsoft's console, selling 24,584 units - it's fourth highest weekly total since launch. Usually the console sells approximately 10,000 units, but it looks like the console might have surpassed the PlayStation 3 and even the Wii this week.

Although released in Japan and the US, Star Ocean: The Last Hope won't be out until late-Spring in Europe, predominantly due to language localisation.

Source: Famitsu via Andriasang