The latest Japanese sales charts show that while Sony's PSP saw a boost in sales during Japan's Golden Week holiday season, Nintendo's 3DS hardware sales remained more or less flat.
According to numbers provided by Media Create (as translated
by Andriasang, the 3DS sold 29,149 units between May 2 and 8, up slightly from the 28,413 it sold in the previous week.
The Golden Week season didn't do much for Nintendo's console: four weeks ago it sold just over 28k, roughly in line with it sales these previous two weeks. By contrast, the PSP rose from just under 24k to 49,162, 76,974 (outselling nearly every other platform combined), and then back down to 54,882 this week.
While Golden Week isn't traditionally a gift-giving period, it does tend to boost consumer sales across the board, even amongst traditionally unpopular products -- sales for Microsoft's Xbox 360, for example, doubled from a combined 3,789 units sold in the two weeks prior to the Golden Week period to 7,501 in the two weeks of tracking that incorporated the holiday season.
While it is certainly possible that stock shortages may have played a part in the system's flat sales, the system is currently in stock in both available colors at online retailers including
Amazon Japan and
Yodobashi, suggesting the system is easily obtainable.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently
admitted that 3DS sales so far are below the company's expecations, promising a heavy marketing push later this month revolving around the launch of the system's digital storefront and expanded video content.
Below are the full sales rankings from Media Create for the week ending May 8, broken down by individual hardware SKUs.
1. PSP: 54,882 (Previous week: 76,974)
2. 3DS: 29,149 (28,413)
3. PlayStation 3: 20,883 (23,954)
4. Wii: 11,520 (10,889)
5. DSi XL: 10,519 (9,235)
6. DSi: 8,708 (7,584)
7. Xbox 360: 3,419 (4,082)
8. PlayStation 22: 1,696 (1,582)
9. DS Lite: 289 (319)
10. PSP Go: 258 (251)
