Whilst it was obvious that, on this side of the planet, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was going to conquer all before it in the run up to Christmas, less was expected from it in the notoriously difficult to predict Japanese market.
All things considered it will have come as a delightful surprise for Activision that the newest instalment of their record busting franchise has hit top spot over in Japan.
PlayStation is more dominant than Xbox and that is reflected in the figures (with Media Create - via andriasang - putting the numbers at 180,372 and 30,467 respectively). Whilst it is not unprecedented for Call of Duty games to thrive in the Japanese market, Modern Warfare 3 had to fight off serious competition from some major Japanese titles to take the number one spot.