For the week ending January 29th Final Fantasy 7 looms large once again in a week where DS hardware sales surge.

Courtesy of Media-Create, we have the most recent sales figures from Japan.

Despite widespread accounts of continued DS scarcity, sales of the dual-screened portable surged upward again. Nevertheless, it will be worth following sales of the original design once the Lite drops (it will be sold alongside the Lite at a lower price). Nintendo Japan has a conference scheduled for mid-February likely to officially unveil the redesign before the press (the shiny pictures being currently bandied about are high-level mock-ups.)

The week's console numbers:

In software, new PS2 release Final Fantasy 7: Dirge of Cerberus took the top spot in yet another demonstration of the popularity of the FF7 property. The charts as a whole saw a significant influx of new titles, with 6 of the Top 10 being newly released. Of those 6, 2 were for the DS including English Training and Bleach. English Training, while not taking the number one spot, had a strong debut of over 200k units sold and it appears the "Touch Generations" line of "non-games" has again left its mark. Rather sober Bleach DS sales could be misleading given accounts that the game was undershipped in its first week and in very short supply. Sales of such a popular anime tie-in are usually automatic regardless of the quality - and this Treasure-developed fighter has certainly been recieving early praise for a fun fighting engine and WiFi Connection support.

It also bears mention that the DS has rung up yet another million-seller. Brain Training for Adults 2 has joined its predecessor a mere 6 weeks after release.

The weekly software numbers follow: