[Gamasutra rounds up recent reports on the Japanese games industry from local news site Andriasang.com, a leading destination for English-language news on Japan's game industry.]
In our latest round-up of Japanese game industry news not previously reported on Gamasutra, we look at
One Piece: Pirate Wars' record-breaking debut after nearly selling out at stores last week, Sony putting out a new PSP color, and SNK announcing a new card game featuring its fighters.
One Piece: Pirate Wars nearly sells out first shipment
After moving more than 655,000 copies last week in Japan -- the second-biggest debut for a PlayStation 3 game behind
Final Fantasy XIII -- Namco Bandai's
One Piece: Pirate Warriors sold through 92 percent of its initial shipment.
The PS3 game, a crossover between manga/anime franchise One Piece with Tecmo Koei's
Warriors/Musou action game series, is the fastest-selling
One Piece game, and already the best-selling title of the franchise after a single week (2002's
One Piece Grand Battle! 2 sold 540,000 copies in its lifetime).
It's also exceeded the previous fastest-selling
Dynasty Warriors game, 2003's
Dynasty Warriors IV for PS3, which sold 650,000 copies in its first week.
One Piece: Pirate Wars also released alongside a limited edition PS3 hardware bundle, which sold 24,000 units, and help tripled total PS3 sales over the previous week.
New Marine Blue/Sky Blue PSP Color Due in April
Though Sony is putting much of its handheld efforts into the new PS Vita, it hasn't given up on its predecessor, the PlayStation Portable hardware yet (consumers haven't either, as the PSP has outsold the PS Vita every week in Japan for the last few months.)
The company is releasing a new color model, Sky Blue/Marine Blue, for the PSP on April 26. It will be packed into a limited edition bundle that also includes a 2GB memory stick, a pouch, and other standard items. It will sell for ¥17,800 ($216).
SNK Dream Battle Announced (for GREE)
SNK will put out a new card game featuring its fighting game characters, in the vein of its beloved
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash franchise, except this time it's releasing the title to Japanese mobile social network GREE instead of handhelds.
Titled
SNK Dream Battle, the social card battle game will be playable first on feature phones, then eventually on smartphones. It will feature characters from SNK series like
Fatal Fury,
Art of Fighting, and
The King of Fighters.
[This story was written with permission using material from Andriasang.com, a leading destination for English-language news on Japan's game industry.] 
