PSP Takes 50% Of Japanese Hardware Market

Market research firm Media Create has revealed data for weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending March 30th, following details of the software top thirty. With software sales of Capcom’s Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G proving expectedly high, so too has the game’s release had a significant effect on hardware sales of the PSP. Thanks to a special hardware bundle, with a newly decorated version of the console, sales of the format accounted for exactly 50 percent of all hardware sales in Japan last week. PSP sales rose by more than double on the previous week, up 70,153 units to a total of 129,986. By comparison Nintendo DS sales were down by around 6,000 units to 58,916 in second place. The Wii was the third highest selling console of the week, with its sales falling by over 13,500 units to a total of 48,785. The PlayStation 3, with only three titles in the top fifty, also saw sales fall, this time by over 1,500 units to 11,206. As usual PlayStation 2 sales were largely static at 10,296 units for the week, while the Xbox 360 also saw little improvement on last week’s figures with a total of 1,547 units sold. Overall in the software top fifty there were twenty-three Nintendo DS titles, nine Wii titles, seven PSP games, six PlayStation 2 titles, three PlayStation 3 titles and two Xbox 360 games.