PS3 Slim selling well in the UK, Japan

According to Famitsu, the new PS3 Slim’s design and pricepoint are a hit with Japanese gamers, who have bought over a 150,000 units in Japan in the first three days of launch last Friday. Meanwhile in the UK, ChartTrack reports

Earlier today, Chart-Track confirmed with VG247 that PS3 sales in the United Kingdom were up a whopping 1,000 percent.

If Sony can keep up this momentum in Europe and Japan and here in North America, then we might just have a contentious fight on our hands for second place in this generation’s cycle of consoles. Of course, as an example, the Xbox 360 saw some modest gains in the UK as well in that same week.

We’ll see how both systems did later this week when NPD Group releases numbers for North America.

More Professor Layton For Japan

In the glossy pages of the latest issue of Japanese gaming Famitsu are pictures and words about Professor Layton. When these words and images are strung together in the right order they reveal that a third professor Layton game called Professor Layton and the Devil’s Flute exists. This makes three games and one movie that have not been published in North America or Europe. Since the first game for the DS was part of a trilogy, one would only assume that this particular game is the start of a second trilogy of games starring the good professor and his assistant. Yes, the game is being developed by Level-5.

Hopefully Nintendo will bring all of these games to America, but just knowing they exists might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside - or very, very sad that you live somewhere other than Japan..

thanks, Joystiq.

February Japanese Software Sales

The top selling software for February (Jan. 26 - Feb. 22) in Japan was Namco Bandai Games’ RPG sequel for the PSP, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2. This according to the latest data from Famitsu. a pretty impressive if you consider just what it was going up against in February. Whoever said the PSP was dead probably shouldn’t be looking at this chart because four of the top ten are on that platform, two were for the DS, one for PS2, one for PS3, one for Wii and one for Xbox 360.

The top ten was made up of Wii Fit, Mario and Luigi RPG 3 for the DS, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time several Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 games, THE iDOLM@STER SP, Street Fighter IV, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, and Star Ocean 4 - The Last Hope. What order were they in? You’ll have to hit the jump to find out more.

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Dead Rising 2 Rumor and Denial

It all started with the translation of an interview in the latest issue of Japanese print magazine Famitsu and it snowballed from there. According to the bit gleaned and translated by Kotaku from an interview with Capcom’s Keiji Inafune, sequels to Dead Rising and Lost Planet are pretty much confirmed:

“We’re finally putting out new Dead Rising and Lost Planet games! As a main principle we’re thinking about multiplatform, and expanding upon both slightly from the Xbox 360 version.”

But Capcom was quick to try to minimize the rumor as a product of a “mistranslation.” Speaking to VG247, an unnamed Capcom representative offered the following quote:

“Dead Rising was a huge success for us and is obviously the kind of game we’d like to continue to make. However, at the moment we have made no official announcement regarding a sequel. As the source is Famitsu, I can only suggest that it was a mistranslation.”

Maybe Keiji Inafune misspoke, perhaps Kotaku mangled the translation (doubtful), or maybe he was speaking about another Dead Rising product. But it really doesn’t matter. We know that Capcom will make a sequel to Dead Rising, given the first game’s critical acclaim and respectable numbers. It’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.”