Sony Hardware Beat Nintendo During 2010 As Japan's Market Declines 14%

Both Sony's console and its portable hardware beat Nintendo's in Japan for the first year ever during 2010, according to new figures released by Famitsu publisher Enterbrain that see the PSP claim the spot of top-selling hardware platform in the country for the year. PSP was the best-selling hardware, and beat the DS by just over 100,000 units, according to the full report translated by Andriasang. The full set of hardware figures spanning March 2010 to March 2011 is as follows, with life-to-date totals in parentheses that show Nintendo still leads the hardware market on the whole: PlayStation Portable: 2,640,499 (16,867,853) Nintendo DS: 2,523,142 (32,598,870) PlayStation 3: 1,407,126 (6,341,950) Wii: 1,397,498 (11,534,590) Nintendo 3DS: 801,423 Xbox 360: 195,563 (1,448,665) The DS category includes all current hardware variations, including DS Lite, DSi and DSi XL ("LL" in Japan), while PSP sales also include the UMD-less PSP Go. On the Japan software front, Nintendo's Pokemon Black & White, which released in Japan in September, led the year with 5,149,022 units sold to date, while Capcom's PSP title Monster Hunter Portable 3rd follows with 4,372,182 units sold since its December 1 release. Nintendo's Wii Party launched in July and has sold 1,826,857 units, and in fourth is Square Enix's DS title Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2, which released in late April and has sold 1,283,423 units. Finally, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the fifth most popular title for the year, with 856,853 units sold to date. Overall, the Japanese game market continues to shrink, contracting nearly 14 percent over last year. The year's total sales came in at 472.6 billion yen ($5.6 million) -- a 13.9% decrease compared to 2009. Total hardware sales shrunk 21 percent to 170.68 billion yen ($2 billion), while software dropped 9.3 percent to 301.92 billion yen ($3.6 billion).