JAPAN: Wii pips PS3 in annual sales race

Having been neck and neck through much of the year in the Japanese video games market, hardware sales figures from Enterbrain suggest that Nintendo’s Wii managed to lurch ahead in the closing stages of 2009 to outsell Sony’s resurgent PS3.

The Wii shifted 1,975,178 units throughout the year – a fraction ahead of PS3’s 1,727,041. However, the PS3 shone with the best overall sales growth nearly doubling its 991k sales in 2008. By contrast, Wii sold 1m units less last year than it did the year before.

The DS emerges as the year’s overall winner, though, with sales of 4,025,313 units – ever so slightly behind the 4,029k it sold in the year before.

The launch of the PSPgo wasn’t able to stimulate sales of Sony’s portable, however, with the machine’s 2,307,971m unit sales representing a drop of 1.2m units year-on-year.

The only console aside from PS3 to see annual unit sales gains was, surprisingly, the Xbox 360, though its 331,706k sales saw it trail far behind its Japanese competitors.

Here are Enterbrain’s numbers in full:

Nintendo DS
2009 estimated sales: 4,025,313m
2008 estimated sales: 4,029,804m
2007 estimated sales: 7,130,228m
Life-to-date estimated sales: 29,160,589m

PSP
2009 estimated sales: 2,307,971m
2008 estimated sales: 3,543,171m
2007 estimated sales: 3,022,659m
Life-to-date estimated sales: 13,386,455m

Wii
2009 estimated sales: 1,975,178m

2008 estimated sales: 2,908,342m
2007 estimated sales: 3,629,361m
Life-to-date estimated sales: 9,501,999m

PlayStation 3
2009 estimated sales: 1,727,041m

2008 estimated sales: 991,303k
2007 estimated sales: 1,206,347m
Life-to-date estimated sales: 4,391,407m

Xbox 360
2009 estimated sales: 331,706k

2008 estimated sales: 317,859k
2007 estimated sales: 257,841k
Life-to-date estimated sales: 1,197,873m