Japanese Hardware Sales Drop For DS, Wii

Market research firm Media Create has revealed data for weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending August 26th, following details of the software top thirty. Despite strong sales in the software chart this week, hardware sales are notably down on the previous week, with the recent Obon holiday apparently having a significant effect on results. The Nintendo DS has fallen the most sharply, down by over 53,000 units to a total of just 100,460. This is the lowest the console has been all year by a considerable margin. Wii hardware sales were down by over 27,500 units to 46,283, also a recent low for the console, while PSP sales dropped by over 7,500 units to 26,089. The PlayStation 3 saw sales dip by over 5,000 units to 16,393 – with the overall trends of the week making it impossible to gauge the console’s hardware performance now that Hot Shots Golf 5 is out of the software top ten. The PlayStation 2 was the only format not overly affected by the Obon holiday, with sales of 15,139 being almost identical to the previous week. With no titles in the software top fifty, Xbox 360 sales dropped by around 400 units to 2,044. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles remained static at 651 units and the GameCube fell only slightly to 116 units.