Japanese Hardware: PSP Sales Rise On New Kingdom Hearts Game

Sales of Sony PSP remained strong in Japan for the week ended January 10, as sales of the handheld grew to 145,682 units week-on-week, Japanese tracking firm Media-Create said Friday. The rise in unit sales made the PSP the only piece of hardware that didn't experience a week-on-week decline. The handheld sold 132,911 units in the prior week. Pushing sales of the PSP hardware was the release of Square Enix's PSP role-playing game Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. The title led software sales charts for the week, selling 445,962 units in its opening two days. The Nintendo Wii, which led the previous week, sank to 76,772 units sold from 163,855. Sony's PlayStation 3 declined to 67,591 from 114,368. Combined sales of the Nintendo DS line of hardware also dropped week-on-week, to 105,466 units from 180,492. The DS line now includes three options: the DS Lite, DSi, and the latest addition, the DSi LL. PSP's digital distribution-only sibling PSP Go saw sales drop even further during the week to 2,841, down from the prior week's 3,903. Below are the full sales rankings from Media Create for the week ended January 10, 2009 (the bottom chart lumps together sales of all models in a given line of hardware).