JAPAN: PSP leads half-year sales battle

The latest figures from Enterbrain, the parent company of legendary Japanese games magazine Famitsu, have shown that PSP was the biggest selling console in the six months ending September 28th.

However, sales of both hardware and software for the period were down compared to the same period in the year before. In total, the market dropped 21.3 per cent, with hardware sales declining 33.5 per cent.

The PSP sold 1,583,731 units in the period, just ahead of Nintendo’s DS, which shifted 1,314,919. Wii sold 1,105,174 machines and the PS3 352,457. Xbox 360 managed to sell 138,740 units.

PSP’s lifetime sales in Japan now number 10,157,757, though that’s some way behind DS’ 23,484,680 unit sales. The Wii has to date sold 6,800,753 machines, the PS3 2,361,949 and the Xbox 360 741,298.

PSP’s dominance is said to be one of the reasons why Nintendo has unveiled its latest DS hardware update, the DSi, which some commentators say was completed over a year ago.

Source: Kotaku