PS3 sales halve in Japan ahead of slim launch

PlayStation 3 sales dried up significantly in Japan ahead of the launch of the new slim console this week.

The latest hardware chart shows sales almost halved on last week, dropping from 2052 to 1040. In contrast, sales of Sony's PlayStation 2 remained stable as 3179 were purchased, down just slightly from 3295 the week prior.

Indeed the PlayStation 3 was the only console that saw such a significant drop with its rivals all recording consistent sales on last week.

At the top of the chart, DS saw sales of 67,185, up slightly from 65,313 the week prior. In second position the PlayStation Portable sold 26,081 compared to 27,187 the week before. Wii sales also dropped very slightly from 26,972 to 25,038.

Xbox 360 sales were down by over 1000 units to 7254 for the week, although with a 25 per cent price reduction for the Elite announced for Japan earlier this week, sales could rise alongside the PlayStation 3's in next week's chart.

In the Japanese software chart, Tomodachi Collection held onto its top position with sales that decreased by just three per cent on last week to 80,000.

Dragon Quest IX remained at number two, and Wii Sports Resort saw a huge push in sales - of 42 per cent - take it from number five back up to number three.

Monster Hunter 3 dropped two places to number five, and its stablemate Monster Hunter Portable 2 G dropped one place to number nine.

Five new games entered the top ten this week - the highest placing of which was Xbox 360 game Dream C Club, which made its début at number four with sales of 46,000.

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny entered at number six, and two DS games - Super Robot Gakuen and Nintendo's You'll Incur Losses if You Remain Ignorant: How Money and Things Work - entered at numbers seven and eight respectively.

Hakuouki Zuisouroku on PlayStation 2 was the final new entry at number ten.

The full Media Create Japanese hardware chart for the week August 25-31 is as follows

• 01 Nintendo DS - 67,185
• 02 PlayStation Portable - 26,081
• 03 Nintendo Wii - 25,038
• 04 Xbox 360 - 7,254
• 05 PlayStation 2 - 3,179
• 06 PlayStation 3 - 1,040

The full Media Create Japanese software chart for the week August 24-30 is as follows:

• 01 Tomodachi Collection (Friend Collection) (DS)
• 02 Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Starry Sky (DS)
• 03 Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
• 04 Dream C Club (360)
• 05 Monster Hunter 3 (Wii)
• 06 Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny (PSP)
• 07 Super Robot Gakuen (DS)
• 08 You'll Incur Losses if You Remain Ignorant: How Money and Things Work (DS)
• 09 Monster Hunter Portable 2 G (PSP)
• 10 Hakuouki: Zuisouroku (PS2)