PSP Passes 10 Million Lifetime Figure In Japan

Despite a significant number-one hit with Sega’s Phantasy Star Portable this week, sales of the PSP console have actually fallen, with the Nintendo DS narrowing the gap between the two formats to its closest in several months. This info comes from data revealed by market research firm Media Create, showing weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending August 3rd following details of the software top thirty. The PSP was still the number one selling console, despite a drop of over 6,000 units to 61,181. As expected, these sales pushed the console over the 10 million lifetime sales figure milestone in Japan, having sold over 2 million units this year alone. In second place Nintendo DS increased by only around 500 units, to a total of 57,398. Sales for the Wii were, again, almost identical to the previous week at 41,109 units. Sales figures for the PlayStation 3 continued their slow descent, with sales down over 1,500 units to 9,508. This brought the console perilously close to being outsold by the PlayStation 2, which dropped only a few hundred units to 9,045. The Xbox 360 continued a recent upward trend, with sales increasing by almost 500 units to 5,359 following the release of Namco Bandai’s SoulCalibur IV. Overall, in the software sales top 50, there were 22 titles for the Nintendo DS, 13 for the Wii, seven for the PSP, four for the PlayStation 3, three for the PlayStation 2 and one for the Xbox 360.