Japanese Hardware: DSi Leads As PS3 and Xbox 360 Clash

A busy week of sales in the software charts has had an expectedly positive effect on hardware sales this week in Japan, with all major formats seeing an increase. The Nintendo DS saw its first increase since the launch of the DSi model, with overall sales of the format rising from 88,886 units to 107,423. Of these sales, 88,843 were for the DSi itself and 18,580 for the older DS Lite model. In second place, sales of the PSP almost doubled to 61,226 units, helped by the success of Gundam vs. Gundam and its associated hardware bundle. This left the PSP still well ahead of its nearest rival the Wii, which, despite the release of Animal Crossing, saw hardware sales increase only from 26,787 units to 35,298. Sales for the two HD formats were extremely close this week, but despite the release of role-playing game The Last Remnant on Xbox 360, it was the PlayStation 3 which emerged as the biggest seller, with a near identical total to last week of 17,436 units. As a result, the Xbox 360 had to be satisfied with a doubling of sales to 15,474 units for the week. The only format not to show an increase this week was the PlayStation 2, down a few hundred units to 5,281. Overall in the software top 50, there were 21 titles for the Nintendo DS, nine each for the Wii and PlayStation 3 (the latter’s highest total for several months), four each for the PSP and PlayStation 2, and three for the Xbox 360.