Japanese Hardware: 360 Lead Narrows Over PS3

The Xbox 360 is still outselling the PlayStation 3 in Japan, but its lead has narrowed further to just over 1,000 units. Although software sales were relatively healthy, this week has seen some of the lowest overall hardware sales this year. As both PSP and Nintendo DS await recently-announced hardware upgrades the DS was the best selling format of the week with just 42,385 units -- down almost 15,500 on the previous seven days. The PSP was the only format to see an increase this week -- although it was only up a few hundred units to 26,045, it was enough to push it into second place ahead of the Wii. Nintendo’s home console saw sales slip by just under 1,000 units to a total of 25,330. With three titles in the top 10, the PlayStation 2 was the second best-selling home console, even though it saw sales fall by over 1,000 units to 8,618. This left the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 with only last place to fight over, with Microsoft’s format just coming out on top. The Xbox 360 saw sales fall by 3,000 units to 8,271, while the PlayStation 3 was down by 1,000 units to just 7,232 for the week. Overall in the top 50 there were 23 titles for the Nintendo DS, nine for the Wii, eight for the PSP, five for the PlayStation 2, three for the PlayStation 3 and two for the Xbox 360.