In contrast to the fairly unchanging Japanese software sales this week, hardware sales saw a bit of a shakeup, as Nintendo consoles slowed while Sony consoles improved -- all except the ever-declining PSP Go.
Still, despite a big sales dropoff from last week, Wii hung on to its top slot according according to tracking firm Media Create's Japanese sales data for the week that ended January 3, 2009.
The Wii sold 163,855 units, only about 30,000 more than the second-place PSP, which was in turn sold about 20,000 more than PlayStation 3.
That means Nintendo DSi ended up in fourth place, contrasting last week's runner-up position. Of course, when sales of all the various Nintendo DS models are combined, the platform ends up with 180,492 sales, putting it in the overall lead.
PSP Go was the week's poorest performer. While Microsoft's Xbox 360, which also struggles in the Japanese market, slightly improved its sales.
In addition Sony's aging PlayStation 2 did similarly, but its PSP Go dropped down below 4,000 weekly sales -- and slid into last place.
Below are the full sales rankings from Media Create for the week that ended January 3, 2009.
| LW | TW | Console | Weekly Sales | Last Week's Sales | | 1 | 1 | Wii | 163,855 | 215,129 | | 4 | 2 | PSP | 132,911 | 105,801 | | 3 | 3 | PS3 | 114,368 | 110,519 | | 2 | 4 | DSi | 92,461 | 113,984 | | 5 | 5 | DSi LL | 70,643 | 81,430 | | 6 | 6 | DS Lite | 17,388 | 17,695 | | 7 | 7 | Xbox 360 | 6,878 | 6,489 | | 9 | 8 | PS2 | 4,023 | 3,747 | | 8 | 9 | PSP Go | 3,903 | 4,192 |
The following list combines models of the same base hardware to give a more general ranking:
| LW | TW | Console | Weekly Sales | Last Week's Sales | | 2 | 1 | Nintendo DS | 180,492 | 213,109 | | 1 | 2 | Wii | 163,855 | 215,129 | | 4 | 3 | PSP | 136,814 | 109,993 | | 3 | 4 | PlayStation 3 | 114,368 | 110,519 | | 5 | 5 | Xbox 360 | 6,878 | 6,489 | | 6 | 6 | PlayStation 2 | 4,023 | 3,747 |
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Why not, there is a big used games market in Japan as well as everywhere else in the world and there are hundreds of PS2 games, that look still great and the new console generation didn't spawned new game ideas yet, so the diiferences between this and the last generation are often only visual ones.
Didn't read anything in this piece about UMDs or the inability to transfer them to the PSP Go. Didn't read anything about that in the comments either. So maybe we read different articles.
Too bad you are the only person enjoying it. And with it's lack of sales, will surely follow a lack of games. So when you get bored, you can put YOUR "brick" back on the shelf and join the rest of society having a blast with gaming systems that actually have... (gasp!!) .... games.
I apologize for complaining about the brick-like size of the PSP and the lack of trasferability of UMD games in this news post. You're right; it was uncalled for. I'll try to do less of that in the future on this website. Furthermore, I will consume your gonads.
It sounds like the sort of incomprehensible attack that a Sony executive would say. You're not one...are you? ;)
Regardless, I am glad you are loving your system :).
(somebody needs to love the PSP Go...it's not like it's horrible by any means!)