Hardware Sales Slip In Slow Week At Japanese Retail

Market research firm Media Create has revealed data for weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending June 20th, following details of the software top thirty yesterday. As has been the case with software sales this week, hardware sales have continued to slip in what is traditionally a quiet period at retail for the Japanese market. As a result, Nintendo DS sales fell by over 52,500 units to just 111,239 – one of the lowest weekly totals of the year so far. Although both Nintendo consoles are still supply constrained, the Wii has seen sales remain almost level with the previous week – down only 351 units to 52,193. The PSP, normally the most consistent of sellers in Japan, was down almost 7,000 units to 27,505 in total for the week. The PlayStation 2 was again in fourth place, with sales up by a few hundred to 10,881 units. The PlayStation 3 though continued to struggle with sales down by 180 units to 8,659. This marks the console’s second week at below 10,000 units, with again no software titles in the top fifty. There were also no Xbox 360 titles in the top fifty, with Microsoft’s console slipping perilously closer to a sub 2,000 unit total – with just 2,026 consoles sold this week. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles saw sales increase by a few dozen to 791 units, while the GameCube slipped by a similar amount to 276 units.