Monster Hunter is a series with some interesting history in Japan. Originally released for PS2, the series did ok. The game play is like Diablo in a future science fantasy world. You hunter monsters that look like dinosaurs. It supports online play. The games sold ok on PS2 in Japan. Around 500k units range. The PS2 version of the first game did very badly in US.
Capcom ported the two games to PSP. And both of them are run away hits. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd sold 1M copies right away the first week, and the game together with FF7 Crisis Core are credited for saving PSP in Japan.
In fact, this year, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd won an award for being the new communication medium among Jr. High and High School students. There are hundreds of BBS popping up organizing hunts. Since the PSP version of the game supports ad-hoc only. What this means is, groups of kids get together, and form a 4 player hunt, and also trade items and such. It's a very popular activity.
Monster Hunter 3 was announced to be a PS3 exclusive game. I have friends that bought PS3 in Japan for this. Well, they need to get a Wii now. PS3 version is canceled due to high development cost and low install base in Japan. Wii is the new exclusive home, because Wii has good install base and development cost of Wii games is very cheap by comparison.
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