Sony Japan Celebrates 10 Million PSP Sales

Officials from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) in Japan have announced that the “cumulative sell-in” figure for PSP consoles in Japan has reached 10 million units, as of July 15th, 2008. Independent data from regular weekly chart provider Media Create is in broad agreement, putting lifetime-to-date sales at 9,857,477 units, as of July 6th. Sales so far this year total 2,192,400 units, with the PSP being by far the best selling hardware format in Japan in the last six months. Despite the console’s almost uncontested domination of hardware sales in Japan, software sales continue to be unusually low for such a successful console. Although Capcom’s Monster Hunter Portable series has proven extremely popular, other titles have been less so. Nevertheless, the ever increasing size of the PSP hardware userbase has seen more PSP software titles appear in the sales top fifty in recent months – which otherwise remains dominated by Nintendo DS and Wii titles. Sony notes that there are now seven different colour versions of the console available in the region, with the previously announced metallic blue bundles due to launch this week. More than 580 software titles are currently available in Japan, with key forthcoming titles including Namco Bandai’s Gundam Battle Universe, Nihon Falcom’s The Legend of Heroes: Sora no Kiseki the 3rd, Sega’s Phantasy Star Portable and Sony titles Bleach: Soul Carnival, LocoRoco 2, Patapon 2, Secret Agent Clank and Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida Or 2.