Just the other day, Square Enix released a report on their top franchises' lifetime sales, from Final Fantasy to the more recently-acquired Tomb Raider. This time, we get a peek at Capcom's Monster Hunter series, care of Famitsu.

Famitsu's data comes from Enterbrain, clocking the lifetime sales of the series in Japan. This spans all games released (so far) on the PS2 and PSP. The breakdown is as follows:

• Mar '04: Monster Hunter (PS2): 288,559
• Jan '05: Monster Hunter G (PS2): 237,393
• Dec '05: Monster Hunter Portable (PSP): 1,122,604
• Feb '06: Monster Hunter 2 dos (PS2): 692,228
• Feb '07: Monster Hunter Portable 2nd (PSP): 1,723,187
• Mar '08: Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP): 3,008,554

And the total? Roughly around 7 million units. It might look rather small compared to Square Enix's sales of Hitman (the lowest on their top 5 franchise list, coming in at 8 million). But again, take note: Capcom's numbers only count Japan sales, while Square Enix's was global.

Eight million sales in one country alone is a tall order, especially for a series which started only a few years ago.

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