JAPAN: PS3 overtakes Wii in 2010

Sony’s PlayStation 3 has now overtaken Wii to become the best selling home console of 2010 in Japan.

In total since January Sony’s machine has shifted 1,017,094 units in the territory compared to Wii’s 1,015,513, according to numbers from Media Create reported by VG247.

Coupled with the most recent data from America, which points to Xbox 360 overtaking Wii to claim the 2010 crown in the US, it now looks as Wii is unlikely to emerge as the best selling home console of the year in either territory.

With PlayStation Move having launched last week and Xbox 360 Kinect arriving in November, significant sales boosts are expected for both machines this Q4.

And while the arrival of 3DS is expected to cement Nintendo’s handheld crown in the coming months, it’s becoming harder to see how Nintendo can recapture the home console momentum without an injection of new hardware.

Last week Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg claimed that the Xbox 360 had broken” industry models by claiming leadership in the current hardware race five years after it first launched.

Of course, Wii’s total install base still dwarfs that of either Xbox 360 or PS3.