Wii lifted by Japanese Smash Bros release

Following a spate of new software titles making it to the Japanese chart top ten yesterday, sales of the next gen consoles have seen a healthy rise, according to sales data from Media Create for the week ending February 3.

The Wii fared best, helped by the release of 820,000 unit-selling Super Smash Bros Brawl, increasing its sales numbers from 74,500 last week to 94,500 this week - a rise of about 27 per cent.

The PlayStation Portable was second, but saw numbers fall slightly week-on-week, as did the Nintendo DS - in fact both handhelds were only represented by a single title each in the software top then.

The PlayStation 3 also surged on the release of Devil May Cry 4, Disgaea 3 and Assassin's Creed, increasing 22 per cent over the previous week.

The PlayStation 2 passed the 21 million mark for lifetime sales, while Devil May Cry 4 also gave the Xbox 360 a slight increase on the week.

The full list is as follows:

1. Nintendo Wii: 94,473
2. PlayStation Portable: 72,528
3. Nintendo DS: 67,472
4. PlayStation 3: 41,796
5. PlayStation 2: 12,115
6. Xbox 360: 6060