Software Market Boosts Japanese Hardware Sales

Market research firm Media Create has revealed data for weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending July 1st, following details of the software top thirty yesterday. With software sales considerably up on previous weeks, hardware sales have seen more modest, but generally universal, growth. One of the few exceptions was sales of the Nintendo DS, which were down by over 6,000 units to 157,480 – after a spike last week following the release of two new hardware colors. However, sales of the Wii were up by over 8,000 units to 73,919, as Nintendo manages to deliver more units than usual to the market. No doubt helped by the sales success of Ratchet & Clank (despite only one other PSP games in the top fifty – Monster Hunter Freedom 2 at number forty-seven) PSP sales rose by over 5,000 units to 38,305. PlayStation 2 sales increased by over 4,000 units to 16,316, keeping the PlayStation 3 in fifth place. However, Sony’s newest console did manage to sell more than 10,000 units for the first time in many weeks, with an increase of over 2,000 units to 11,914. At the same time three PlayStation 3 games registered in the top fifty, with Rainbow Six: Vegas at number nineteen, Ninja Gaiden Sigma at number forty-one and FolksSoul (aka Folklore) at forty-five. With no software titles in the top fifty the Xbox 360 saw hardware sales drop by a few hundred to 3,154 units. Sales of the Game Boy Advance family of consoles rose slightly to 572, with the GameCube also up fractionally to 111 units sold.