Japanese Hardware: Sony Celebrates Successful PSP-3000 Launch

The launch of Sony's new streamlined PSP-3000 portable iteration has proven a huge a success in Japan -- sales are up from 23,901 last week to a total of 159,816. No data is provided on sales of individual models, but the new PSP-3000 is expected to eventually supplant the PSP Slim and Lite, in the same way those previous models did with the original PSP-1000. Japanese PSP sales have slowed over the last several weeks as customers waited for the PSP-3000 to be released. The Nintendo DS now finds itself in the same position, with the launch of the DSi next month leaving current sales at 29,839 units, down 2,000 on the previous week. In third place, Wii sales have seen a small boost following the release of Wii Music at the top of the software charts - up a little over 3,000 units to 26,024. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 still clung to fourth place, with sales almost unchanged from the previous week at 7,856 units. Microsoft’s console managed to stay just ahead of the PlayStation 2, which saw sales rise by a few hundred units to 7,261. This left the PlayStation 3 to continue its downward spiral, losing almost 1,000 unit sales over the previous week for a total of just 4,725. Overall in the top 50, there were 22 titles for the Nintendo DS, 10 for the Wii, eight for the PSP, seven for the PlayStation 2, three for the PlayStation 3 and none for the Xbox 360.