PSP Leads Subdued Japanese Hardware Chart

Market research firm Media Create has revealed data for weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending July 6th, following details of the software top thirty. With few new software releases to stimulate sales, totals for the week are slightly down almost across the board. The PSP managed to maintain its position as the best selling console in Japan, despite sales falling by almost 2,500 units to 56,439. The Nintendo DS was again in second place this week, with its sales declining by around 1,500 units to 47,455. This left the Wii in third place with a more precipitous fall of almost 4,000 units to a total of 44,525. The PlayStation 3 saw a drop in sales of over 3,500 units, despite having the highest new entry of the week in the form of Sega’s Initial D: Extreme Stage. Its total sales for the week stand at 14,359 – now only a few thousand above its average figure before the release of Metal Gear Solid 4. PlayStation 2 sales saw the only rise of the week, up 4,000 units to 11,768. Xbox 360 sales fell, but only by a few hundred units to 4,776 – although there are no longer any Xbox 360 titles in the software top fifty. Overall in the software sales top fifty, there were twenty-five titles for the Nintendo DS, nine for the Wii, eight for the PSP, five for the PlayStation 2, three for the PlayStation 3 and none for the Xbox 360.