According to various media reports, the past week has been a god one of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in Japan. Xbox 360 sold 24,962 units in the period between 4 and 10 August. The sales record were revealed by Media Create, a company which estimates the nationwide sales after collecting information from about 3,000 stores across Japan.

Apparently, the launch of the "Tales of Vesperia" video game made the past seven days the best week of sales since the gaming console was introduced in Japan in December 2005.

"Tales of Vesperia" is the tenth title in the Tales series and it released on August 7, 2008 in Japan. Besides the video game, the offer also included a Vesperia faceplate and bonus DVD. More than 200 Japanese gamers were waiting the release of the console outside the Akihabara outlet of Yodobashi Camera. The game will be available in North America on August 26, and first game in the history of the Tales series to launch in Japan and North America within the same month.

In fact, the Japanese gaming market has proved to be a tough one for Xbox 360.

In more than two years, Microsoft has not managed to reach the one million units milestone and, despite the price cuts, Xbox 360 is lagging far behind its main competitors, Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3. For example, according to the figures released earlier this year by Enterbrain, in 2007 Microsoft sold in Japan only 235,318 units.

The lack of attractive game titles, conceived especially for the Japanese market, is considered to be one of the reasons that cause for these poor sales.

However, Microsoft repeatedly claimed its interest for Japan and made several efforts to release new titles. Still the company failed to secure exclusive deals with the Japanese game makers.

For example, earlier this month, Japanese game developer Square Enix Co Ltd invited the video game enthusiasts to an event held in Tokyo, meant to provide a peak at several upcoming releases, including trailers for the Final Fantasy XIII series, news and also new information on other games.

While Final Fantasy XIII game will also be available on Sony Corp’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360 in the United States and Europe, the new title will be an exclusive for the PS3 in Japan.

And speaking about PS3, in the past week, Sony sold only 9,673 units, while Nintendo's Wii sold 38,506 units, according to the same report from Media Create.