It's been 4 long years since the last title in the main Resident Evil series launched and Japanese gamers have missed the franchise, evident by it's amazing first day of sales.  The title went on sale yesterday in Japan, and sold nearly 300,000 copies combined on both platforms.  After a strong week of PS3 sales following the release of Yakuza 3, the PS3 version of Resident Evil 5 outsold the XBox 360 version nearly 4 to 1, at 222,000 copies.  The XBox 360 version sold 56,000 copies, bringing the grand total to 278,000 copies in it's debut.

First week sales should end up closer to 350K-400K, barring a complete sell out of the stock.  The PS3 should also come in at the pole position once again for hardware as well, with nothing really due out for the Wii or DS this week.

Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror series produced by Capcom.  The highly anticipated title is due out next week, on March 13, for the PS3 and XBox 360.