Japanese Hardware: PSP and PS3 Lead As Sony Keeps Fighting Back

It has been another good week for Sony in Japan, with the PSP becoming the best selling hardware platform and the PlayStation 3 beating both the Wii and Xbox 360. The PSP saw sales rise by 24,000 units to a total of 59,568, despite an unexceptional performance in the software chart. Instead, the increase was due to the new Radiant Red and Vibrant Blue "carnival color" hardware models. As previously announced, the Bright Yellow and Spirited Green models of the PlayStation Portable will launch on March 19th in the country. The PS3 was the second-best selling hardware platform of the week, although its more modest increase was due to new software. Thanks to the success of Capcom’s Resident Evil 5, sales increased by 3,000 units to 39,835. Despite more prominent new software releases than Sony’s portable, it was a poor week for the Nintendo DS -- overall sales fell by over 4,000 units to 43,342 (32,102 for the DSi and 11,240 for the DS Lite). The Wii, which has no titles in the software top 10, saw sales slip by over 1,000 units to just 16,560. Also buoyed by the release of Resident Evil 5, the Xbox 360’s total rose by 3,000 units to a total of 14,994 –- only 1,500 units off the Wii’s total. PlayStation 2 sales remained static at 4,954 units. Overall in the software top 50, there were 21 titles for the Nintendo DS, nine for the Wii, seven for the PSP, six for the PlayStation 2, five for the PlayStation 3 and two for the Xbox 360.