PSP Outsells Wii in Japan

Nintendo has had a firm hold of the Japanese gaming market almost non-stop since the launch of the Wii in November, 2006. The only true competition to the Wii’s dominance at the top of Japanese sales has come from another Nintendo product, the DS. But now Nintendo’s 1-2 combo has been broken by Sony, as its PSP handheld has outsold the Wii.

For this week, at least.

Sales of Sony’s handheld topped 184,000 last week, more than doubling the week prior, which saw 91,000 units sold. The sudden boost in sales has some analysts puzzled, as no new significant games were released for the PSP during that week. In fact, there are only three PSP games in the Japanese top 50 software sales. Sony’s other product, the PlayStation 3, sold a respectable 63,000+ units.

Meanwhile the Nintendo Wii, which the PSP surpassed, had sold 170,000+ units in the same week period, and Nintendo was able to hold into its number one spot on the Japanese sales charts with its DS handheld, which sold an impressive 222,000+ units.

Combined, the two horse race between Sony and Nintendo ultimately wound up going in Nintendo’s favor once again as Nintendo sold 392,702 pieces of hardware to Sony’s 248,330 combined units.

For those of you who are curious about Microsoft’s continued efforts to try and get noticed in Japan, there is nothing new to report. Microsoft failed to clear the 10,000 mark yet again, moving only 8,500 units.

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