PS3 sales drop off in Japan

Sony console sales drop 22% on last week; Halo 3: ODST enters top ten software chart

News by Kath Brice Contributor

Published on Oct. 2, 2009

PlayStation 3 continued to hold its position as the second most popular console in Japan this week, but sales dropped 22 per cent on last week – indicating that popularity is starting the wane.

Unit numbers of 39,960 were sold, compared to 51,055 last week. The DSi continued to outsell all of its rivals with sales of 63,342, down slightly on 66,073 last week.

PlayStation Portable and Wii also saw significant declines in sales, with the former selling 17,334 down from 21,073, and the latter 11,731 down from 16,698. DS Lite, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 held their positions in terms of popularity, with 360 sales still low at 4854.

In the Japanese software chart, the Pokemon titles that have been sitting in the top two positions for two weeks following their release are relegated to numbers two and three as the consistently popular Tomodachi Collection retakes the top spot with a sales increase of 34 per cent.

After selling huge numbers which, combined, have now topped two million, Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver both saw sales sharply drop this week by 69 per cent for the former and 71 per cent the latter.

PlayStation 3 title Tales of Vesperia dropped one place and 77 per cent of its sales this week to take the number four position.

Meanwhile Wii Sports Resort re-entered the top ten from number 11 to number six and UK chart topper Halo 3: ODST debuted at a more modest number nine in the Japanese sales chart.

The full Media Create Japanese hardware chart for the week September 22-28 is as follows: