Bleach: Heat the Soul 6 was the number one game in Japan the other week, followed by the debut of Atlus’ Grow Lancer. We recognise neither of those titles but we’re sure they’re great.

Winning Eleven Playmaker 2009 (a take on Pro Evolution Soccer) and Rack Pachi 6 were the other debuts to make it into the top 10. More familiar titles include Wii Fit (at 8), Mario and Luigi RPG 3 (at 9), Dragonball and Pokemon.

Here’s the top ten, courtesy of ChartGet:

1. [PSP] Bleach: Heat the Soul 6 (SCEI) 41,000 / NEW
2. [PSP] Grow Lancer (Atlus) 23,000 / NEW
3. [NDS] Dragon Ball Kai: Saiyajin Raishuu (Namco Bandai) 20,000 / 136,000
4. [NDS] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Sky (Nintendo) 15,000 / 299,000
5. [NDS] Made in Ore (Wario Ware) (Nintendo) 15,000 / 112,000
6. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 2 G (PSP the Best) (Capcom) 15,000 / 678,000
7. [WII] Winning Eleven Playmaker 2009 (Konami) 14,000 / NEW
8. [WII] Wii Fit (Nintendo) 11,000 / 3,414,000
9. [NDS] Mario & Luigi RPG 3 (Nintendo) 10,000 / 616,000
10. [PS2] Rack Pachi 6 (Tecmo) 9,000 / NEW

Sales data released from the ever-reliable NPD Group shows that film-to-videogame tie-ins saw a dramatic decrease in sales this past year in the US.

According to an article in the L.A. Times (not the place we expected to see this kind of news), every franchise had its own excuse, but we suspect that the average consumer has simply had enough of playing sub-par games based on franchises they love. And really, who can blame them.

Here’s some info on the top ‘sliders’:

• Activision and DreamWork’s Monsters vs. Aliens has sold just 161,000 units since March 2.

• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, while critically acclaimed, sold around 100,000 units and the less than stellar performance can be blamed being bounced around during the Activision Vivendi merger.

• Disney’s Hannah Montana: The Movie sold just 65,000 units during its first three weeks. The article notes that “inexpensive video games aimed at girls, traditionally the foundation of Disney Interactive’s strategy, aren’t consistently hits.”

• Grin’s Wanted: Weapons of Fate has sold only 100,000 units since its launch on March 24 and NPD says that delaying the game for quality reasons, putting it being released much later than the film, had loads to do with the poor sales.

• The Godfather II has sold 241,000 units with the Xbox 360 version taking the fifth spot on the April top ten, but compared to the original game selling 4 million units worldwide, the figures are undesirable.

NPD says that movie tie-ins have always been a reliable form of sales for publishers, and while Europe has also seen a decline in the sales for the niche, the firm’s unsure if this is a trend or just current market fluctuations.

The ever popular music rhythm game, Rock band, now gets 25 new tracks for the Wii version. Our personal favourite addition is the 70’s classic, My Sharona.

They’re $2 each in the US. Check out the full list:

• Franz Ferdinand - “Take Me Out”
• Franz Ferdinand - “Do You Want To”
• Franz Ferdinand - “Lucid Dreams”
• Alien Ant Farm - “Smooth Criminal”
• The Allman Brothers Band - “Blue Sky”
• The Allman Brothers Band - “Midnight Rider”
• The Distillers - “Drain the Blood”
• Luscious Jackson - “Naked Eye”
• Prong - “Idealistic Types”
• Prong - “The Banishment”
• The Knack - “My Sharona”
• Coheed & Cambria - “Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood & Burial)”
• The B-52s - “Roam”
• Buzzcocks - “Ever Fallen in Love”
• The Runaways - “Cherry Bomb”
• T-Rex - “Bang a Gong”
• Grateful Dead - “Casey Jones”
• Grateful Dead - “China Cat Sunflower”
• Grateful Dead - “Franklin’s Tower”
• Grateful Dead - “I Need A Miracle”
• Grateful Dead - “Sugar Magnolia”
• Grateful Dead - “Truckin’”
• At the Gates - “Blinded by Fear”
• Evile - “Thraser”
• The Haunted - “D.O.A.”

US giant retailer GameStop has recorded profits of $70.4 million for Q1 2009 (ending May 2), up 13.4% compared to the same period last year.

Total sales for Q1 grew a solid 9.2% to $1.98 billion, a figure which was led by the hugely successful launch of the Nintendo DSi handheld and two blockbuster Capcom titles – Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter IV.

It wasn’t all good news though. The recession in Europe and the slowdown of new console sales were named as the cause of a decline in comparable store sales of 1.5 per cent. “During the quarter GameStop sustained its strong earnings growth momentum and exceeded earnings guidance despite less than planned comparable store sales,” said Daniel DeMatteo, CEO of GameStop.

DeMatteo explained:

“We continue to profitably manage our business through the global recession by effectively managing our buy-sell-trade model and maintaining tight expense control. In fact, we were able to retire USD 50 million of senior notes and end the quarter with cash of USD 230 million. I am also pleased that we were able to capitalise on the downward pressure of rents, and open 114 new stores.”

With The Sims 3 coming out in June and some triple-A titles lined up for late summer, we suspect GameStop’s Q2 will yield solid results.

The US PC charts don’t change much from week to week, as we’re sure you’ve noticed. The titles seem to just play a game of musical chairs, with the odd new player arriving once every few months.

World of Warcraft traded places with the Battle Chest (so Activision dominates as usual), Spore went from number nine to seven, Empire: Total War and the Fallout Trilogy both went down a notch and Bejeweled knocked Demigod out of the top ten (poor Demigod).

As usual we’ve listed the NPD figures followed by Direct2Drive, who show the digital download side of PC game sales:

NPD’s Top Ten

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. Left 4 Dead
4. World Of Warcraft
5. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest
6. Empire: Total War
7. Spore
8. Fallout Trilogy (Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics)
9. Bejeweled Twist
10. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack

Direct2Drive’s Top Ten

1. Mount & Blade
2. Men of War
3. Cryostasis
4. Civilization IV
5. Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate
6. Fallout 3
7. Rome: Total War Gold
8. 1701 A.D. Gold Edition
9. Crysis Maximum Edition
10. Assassin’s Creed

In a surprising update that has confused pretty much everybody, 3D Realms has just issued a statement saying that the firm is has not closed, despite being an ongoing concern. Heavy rumours over the last couple of weeks had suggested that the company had closed due to a lack of funding.

“Despite rumors and statements to the contrary, 3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing,” said the firm. “3DR retains ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. Due to lack of funding, however, we are saddened to confirm that we let the Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) development team go on May 6th, while we regroup as a company”

The statement continued, clarifying the company’s new position.

“While 3DR is a much smaller studio now, we will continue to operate as a company and continue to license and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise.”

3DR also responded to the impending lawsuit against them, filed by Take-Two, who said the publisher owed them $12 million.

The statement added:

“Take-Two never paid 3DR advances or any signing bonus or any other funds related to DNF, up until July 2008, at which time they paid $2.5m in connection with another agreement for an unannounced game. This is the sum total Take-Two has paid 3DR in connection with DNF.”

The Golden Joystick Awards reached a record-breaking 150,000 votes in only its second week of voting!

The voting in most of the major categories is incredibly competitive, and many of them are apparently going right to the wire.

You can head over to GoldenJoystick.com to see the results after voting for your favourite games. We’re rooting for some underdogs this year – why not tell us the games that you’ve enjoyed?

The long list voting has now closed, with the shortlist to be revealed on June 1. The categories you could have voted for are listed below:

• Family Game of the Year
• Handheld Game of the Year
• Mobile Game of the Year
• Multiplayer Game of the Year
• Nintendo Game of the Year
• The One to Watch:
• Online Game of the Year
• PC Game of the Year
• PlayStation Game of The Year
• Publisher of the Year
• Retailer of the Year
• Soundtrack of the Year
• UK Developer of the Year
• The Ultimate Game of the Year
• Xbox Game of the Year

SCEA ignored the increasingly familiar news that the PS3 sold poorly again in April, reaching only 127,000 units in the US. Instead, the company focused on the console’s upcoming slate.

US communications boss Patrick Seybold said:

“We’re revving up the new fiscal year with a broad tent of content and services across our platforms with envelope-pushing PS3 games like inFAMOUS, MAG, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

“We often hear from our customers that they’re surprised by everything the PS3 does in addition to what they purchased the device for - including features like DLNA, free access to Wi-Fi and internet browser In some ways, this serves as a reminder that there’s more we can do to relay the full breadth and power of the PS3.”

Wait, there’s more…

“We know our consumers have varying entertainment lifestyles from the Blu-ray movie fanatic to photo enthusiast, so we’ve outlined our most aggressive marketing plans to help showcase this tremendous value proposition to all our consumers.”

And more…

“We’ve got a proven history in delivering the best entertainment experience and there is no doubt the PlayStation brand is staged for another big year.”

We think it’s about all Sony can do at the moment, as their sales record of late has gone from bad to worse. They need a great E3 and a solid summer push to get out of this rut. In a couple of weeks we’ll know more.

In a rough month for many game developers, American games sales were down 17 percent for April compared to the same month last year. Total sales reached $1.03 billion, down from a much stronger $1.24 billion in 2008. Hardware sales were also down 8% to $391.63 million, while software dropped a huge 23% to $510.74 million. Peripherals were also down a slightly less damaging 15% to $129.45 million. Tough times.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier said:

“While April sales might appear soft on the surface, it’s important to remember that April is being compared against a month (April 2008) that realized nearly 50 percent growth over April 2007.

“This year’s performance still represents the second-best performance for the industry in the month of April, besting April 2007, which is the previous second-place holder, by 26 percent.

“Given how strong the growth was in the industry last year, there are still some months ahead where year-over-year comparisons may be difficult, but May should be an easier comparison than the last two months have been.”

We expect the market to pick up again as the summer months arrive, and E3 (scheduled for the start of June) should help boost interest in new games.