PS3 sales remain stable in Japan

Sony console sales second only to DSi; Pokemon tops software chart for second week

News by Kath Brice Contributor

Published on Sept. 25, 2009

Sales of the PlayStation 3 have remained stable on last week in Japan, with a drop of just eight per cent taking them to 51,055.

Following the console's price reduction almost three weeks ago, it saw an immediate sales spike of 151,000 units, before dropping last week to 55,344.

This week only the DSi outperformed the PlayStation 3, with a sales figure of 66,073 putting the Nintendo handheld at the top of the chart. The DS Lite sold 13,555.

Wii sales were down slightly, to 16,698 compared to 17,568 last week. PlayStation Portable however saw a rise to 21,073 from 18,375. Xbox 360 sales, which rose to 7568 last week sunk back to 4965 this week. The PlayStation 2 sold 2723 units.

Meanwhile, the top ten games chart was dominated by new releases this week - six in total - the highest placing of which was the PS3's Tales of Vesperia, which sold 216,593 copies and debuted at number three.

While such impressive sales would normally be expected to catapult the game to the top spot, the top two places were held by last week's new entries - Pokemon Soul Silver and Pokemon Heart Gold. Between them, the two Nintendo titles managed sales in excess of 440,000.

Other new entries included Konami's Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakkyuu Portable 4 at number four, Square's SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu at number five and a second Konami game Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 4 at number seven.

The full Media Create Japanese hardware chart for the week September 15-21 is as follows: