Pre-orders for the anticipated cross-series brawler have already exceeded 200,000 in Japan...

Nintendo of Japan has announced today that pre-orders for the upcoming Jump Superstars already number above 200,000. This almost a month before the game's anticipated release in Japan on August 8th. Interest will further be piqued by the simultaneous rollout of the new red-coloured DS, a sales tactic which resulted in significant increases in units sold the last time it was tried with Nintendogs.

Jump Superstars, a fighting game for up to 4 players, was already predicted to be a smashing success in Japan due to its roster comprising the most popular characters from the sizeable catalog of series depicted in Shonen Jump Comics. The roster of characters (playable and otherwise) include figures known in the west, such as Son Goku of DragonballZ fame, Kenshin of Rurouni Kenshin and Monkey D. Luffy from the series One Piece. Other popular series include Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho, Death Note, Bleach, Eyeshield 21 and many, many others. In all, the game is expected to feature more than 150 characters across all series.

Given the use of so many popular characters, the early success is not altogether surprising. Jump themselves made sure to add to the hype every week by revealing new characters with accompanying screenshots. High scores from notable reviewers such as Famitsu would only serve to further galvanize what will likely be strong sales for weeks to come, but it should be noted that Nintendo themselves are not developing the game in-house. Those duties have been entrusted to third party developer Ganbarion.

The bad news (isn't there always?) is that the game has not yet been confirmed for release outisde of Japan. Nevertheless, stay tuned to Cube-Europe as we track the progress of one of the DS' biggest titles.