Monster Hunter Portable 3rd is a sales monster!

Word of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd's initial success came yesterday as Capcom announced a two million shipment figure for the game. Today, Enterbrain (via Famitsu.com) backed up the shipment figure with actual sales figures, and also provided an indication on the kind of boost the game gave PSP hardware.

In its first five days, covering December 1 through December 5, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd sold 2,146,467 units. This, it should be noted, is higher than the first week two million unit shipped figure Capcom announced. Capcom didn't give an exact time frame for its shipment figure, so it's possible the time periods do not line up.

Even more impressive, the game gave a huge boost to PSP hardware sales. Over the week, PSP sold 326,639 hardware units (not including PSP go). In contrast, the previous week's total for the system (via Media Create) was 75,689 units. The system usually sells 30,000 to 40,000 units.

Both the software and hardware figure are new records for the system, Enterbrain reports.

Capcom and Sony teamed up for the "Monster Hunter Portable 3rd Hunters Model" PSP, a special PSP unit with slight hardware redesigns based of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd play. It's unclear how many of the PSP's sales were attributed to the special system.

The special Monster Hunter PSP system. The game is sold separately.