Japanese Hardware: DS Maintains Lead As Sony Narrows Gap

While the software charts stuck in the doldrums, hardware sales this week in Japan also saw a slide. The Nintendo DS still leads, but its sales slipped by over 8,500 units to 62,013 (of which 55,613 sales were on the DSi and 15,147 on the DS Lite). PSP sales fell by over 9,000 units to 34,969, while the Wii dropped by over 2,500 units to 20,412. PlayStation 3 sales, though, fell by only a little over 1,000 units to 16,082, as Sony’s home console continues to slowly improve its footing in Japan and its sales relative to the Wii. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 sales were almost unchanged from the previous week, with the former up a few hundred units and the latter down by almost the same amount. Overall in the software top 50, there were 21 titles for the Nintendo DS, 10 for the Wii, eight each for the PSP and PlayStation 3, two for the PlayStation 2, and one for the Xbox 360.