Big in Japan Oct. 4-10: Red Dead Redemption, Kingdom Hearts DS

John Marston may be an expert hunter of buffalo, grizzly bears, and (soon) zombie cougars, but there's one big game even the star of Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption can't take down: Pokemon. Media Create has released its Japanese sales chart for the week of October 4-10, and the DS combo of Pokemon Black and White held on to the top spot for the fourth straight week, fending off strong openings from Red Dead Redemption, Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded, and more.

The Eastern debut of Rockstar's open-world Western sold was strong enough to land in the top 10 on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The former landed in fourth place with 70,599 sold and the latter trailed in seventh with 25,673 sold. Combined, the two editions barely outsold the DS debut of Disney-Square Enix crossover Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, which placed third with 95,505 sold.

Despite those performances, the best-selling new release of the week was a combo pack of the latest Macross animated movie on Blu-ray along with a PS3 remake of last year's Macross: Ultimate Frontier game. Published by Namco, the Gekijouban Macross F: Itsuwarino Utahime - Hybrid Pack racked up 152,699 in sales. Macross may be more familiar to Western audiences as part of the Robotech series.

Another notable new release was Codemasters' F1 2010, which finished the week in eighth place, selling 25,273 copies. That was just enough to edge out the PS3 edition of Dead Rising 2, which sold 24,416 copies in its second week on sale.

Even with an abundance of top-selling new releases, hardware sales were slow for the week. The order of the systems was unchanged from the previous week, with every platform but two seeing a drop in units sold. Nintendo's DS Lite edged up from 5,707 sold to 5,960 sold, while the cellar-dwelling digital distribution-only PSP Go broke the 1,000 mark for the first time in months, jumping from 754 sold to 1,191 sold.

JAPAN GAME SALES WEEK OF OCTOBER 4-10, 2010
Software:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Platform / Unit sales
1. Pokemon Black and White / The Pokemon Company / DS / 231,638
2. Gekijouban Macross F: Itsuwarino Utahime - Hybrid Pack / Namco / PS3 / 152,699
3. Kingdom Hearts Re:coded / Square Enix / DS / 95,505
4. Red Dead Redemption / Take-Two Interactive / PS3 / 70,599
5. Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono. 3 / Acquire / PSP / 30,572
6. Wii Party / Nintendo / Wii / 26,259
7. Red Dead Redemption / Take-Two Interactive / X360 / 25,673
8. F1 2010 / Codemasters / PS3 / 25,273
9. Dead Rising 2 / Capcom / PS3 / 24,416
10. K-On! After School Live!! / Sega / PSP / 21,454

Hardware:
PSP - 33,683
DSi - 22,301
DSi LL - 21,777
PS3 - 19,948
Wii - 12,158
DS Lite - 5,960
Xbox 360 - 2,746
PS2 - 1,373
PSP Go - 1,191