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NEWS

DSi Dominates Japanese Charts

Rob Crossley's picture

By Rob Crossley

January 14, 2009

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Nintendo’s DSi has entered the new year in Japan in the same manner as it left 2008; by rising above its peers in the hardware charts.

For the week ending January 4, Nintendo’s newish handheld sold 182,518 units. It was a noticeable (yet expected) drop from the two previous weeks, which resulted in 188,697 sales last week and a staggering turnover of 204,144 for the previous Christmas week.

Nintendo’s DSi still managed to outsell Sony’s PSP this week, though Sony will be delighted with its consoles' recent successes in Japan. Our most recent report showed Sony’s PSP moved some 71,000 units; around 100,000 less than its handheld competitor, yet the following week it had more than doubled its sell-through to around 146,000 sales, and now picks up momentum this week by shifting over 157,000 units.

Sony’s other current-gen platform has also enjoyed strong successive sales. It was only two months ago that Sony discovered the PS3 had sold a worrying 4,800 units in Japan across a week; now the console sells more than that figure each day, reaching over 60,000 sales as it enters the new year. The week prior it had moved around 46,000 units.

By contrast, the Xbox 360 managed to sell a third of what Sony had achieved, with sales of 19,694, though still climbing over 6,000 sales from the previous week.

The PS2, meanwhile, has continued to relieve Sony’s challenging time in the market. As the mature console hits its 50 millionth sale in North America, in Japan it sold 12,548 for the week, a climb of some 2,000 units from the previous one.

The Wii, meanwhile, enters the year by doubling the success of the PS3. Nintendo’s home console moved around 120,000 units in a single week, though sales had dropped a little from its achievement of some 134,000 sales the week prior.

Interestingly, the only consoles that felt a drop from last week were all made by Nintendo; the Wii, DSi and DS Lite all fell slightly. However, only the most pessimistic viewer would see this as a genuine decline in popularity, as opposed to an unflattering comparison to the holiday sales madness.

Full list for the week ending Jan 4 according to Media Create:

DSi- 182,518
PSP- 157,088
Wii- 119,965
PS3- 60,654
DS Lite- 48,160
Xbox 360- 19,694
PS2- 12,548

Note: Sales data expected to update within two days.

rydamgw's picture
On January 14th rydamgw said:

holidays are over buddy sorry read the article week ending Jan 4

Kenology's picture
On January 14th Kenology said:

It's the holiday season, my friend. These sales are all residual holiday sales. Trust, the PS3 would not be at 60k otherwise! Nor would the Wii be over 100k.

rydamgw's picture
On January 14th rydamgw said:

Wow PS3 is doing great in Japan its definitely a good sign and w the timed exclusive Final Fantasy your going to see sales SKYROCKET well above 100,000 units a week. Its strange how the 360 really holds no weight in Japan Microsoft needs to change there strategy there or they will be outsold massively every week, it seems price doesnt matter to the Japanese there all about quality.

NickgamertagO1's picture
On January 14th NickgamertagO1 said:

Oh Ryda.

By that rationale that would mean the PS3 is low quality since it gets smashed in the states.

I think MS has pretty much done everything they can in Japan. As with the Xbox 1, the Japanese seem to just not be interested in an American made home console (it's not a size thing as people said with the Xbox 1 as the PS3 is actually bigger than the 360). It’s not a quality thing Ryda, it’s probably a number of things, but you can't say it’s a quality thing. Is the rest of the world (where the 360 is doing better than the PS3) just totally naive and not realize the 360 is low quality? Don't think so.

And also, I think you can make an argument that the 30th of December to 4 January is still considered holiday time especially since most people didn't have to be back to work/school until the 3rd (or later). Also, a lot of people probably got money for xmas so now they're spending their xmas money on games/hardware.

Kenology's picture
On January 14th Kenology said:

Everything does "great" during the holidays.