Japanese media company Enterbrain has published the details of an independent report which shows that the PSP outsold the Nintendo DS in February and March this year in Japan.
For most of this period, the PSP outsold the Nintendo DS by around 30%, although Nintendo’s console has overtaken the PSP for the last two weeks, after the release of two new hardware colors and the marquee Nintendo-created DS game
Kirby Canvas Curse.
This has made it somewhat trickier the PSP to make in-roads on the Japanese Nintendo DS userbase, which now stands at 1.8 million, compared to 1.09 million for the PSP.
Interestingly, the figure of 1.09 million is exactly the same amount sold by the Nintendo DS in December alone, though the DS sales have levelled off majorly since then.
Stock shortages significantly affected the PSP’s Japanese launch, with only 330,000 units sold during December. The Nintendo DS was also ahead in January, with 450,000 units versus 360,000 for the PSP.
February, though, saw the PSP pull ahead for the first time with 195,000 units versus just 121,000 for the DS. Sales increased again in March, with 202,000 units for the PSP versus 136,000 units for the DS.
With little to base predictions on, it is debatable whether these figures are surprising, but it is likely that Sony will have been hoping for a more forceful entry into the portable market - had larger numbers of PSPs been available at launch, the PSP might even have outpaced the DS by now.
