Nintendo DS Extends Lead In Japanese Hardware Charts

Market research firm Media Create has revealed data for weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending August 19th, following details of the software top thirty. Although the Wii may now be the best selling format in the U.S., the Nintendo DS remains Japan’s most widely bought console, with an increase in sales of over 6,500 units to a total of 153,834 for the week. As a result, the console now has a life time total in Japan of over 19 million units and will likely exceed a yearly total of 5 million next week. The Wii also saw an increase in sales, of nearly 9,000 units, to a total of 73,938. As usual PSP hardware demand was largely unaffected by software sales, with only one game in the top thirty and four overall in the top fifty. Nevertheless sales rose by around 1,500 units to 33,715. The continued success of Minna no Golf 5 (aka Hot Shots Golf 5) saw PlayStation 3 sales remain almost exactly static at 21,720 units sold. Meanwhile, the PlayStation 2, which has only three titles in the top fifty this week, saw sales rise by over 2,500 units to 15,240. The Xbox 360 saw sales rally by a few hundred units at 2,445 for the week, despite no titles in the software top fifty. The Game Boy Advance family of console saw sales rise slightly at 654 units, while the GameCube was also up slightly 145 units.