Though it arrived in Europe for the first time just last year, the Dragon Quest series remains one of the hottest properties in the Japanese games market – and the latest instalment, Dragon Quest IV on DS, has kept up the tradition with sales of 597,000 in its first week.

The success of Square Enix’s title helped the sector to a bumper performance, with the top ten games alone selling 1.5 million units in the week ending November 25th, according to figures from Media Create.

There were also strong performances from Konami’s Winning Eleven 2008 (known in the West as Pro Evolution Soccer), Sega’s Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and another Square Enix RPG – Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess.

The top ten in full, as reported by Kotaku:

1. Dragon Quest IV (DS)
2. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 (PS2)
3. World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 (PS3)
4. Mario Party DS (DS)
5. Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess (PS2)
6. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
7. Dinosaur King: The Seven Fragments (DS)
8. Mega Man Star Force 2: Berserk × Shinobi (DS)
9. Mega Man Star Force 2: Berserk × Dinosaur (DS)
10. Pachinko Assassin III: Iron Pachi-Chonmage 13 (PS2)