But let’s start with the last month. According to Enterbrain, Nintendo Wii outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 in a 3 to 1 report.
In the five weeks to March 30, Nintendo sold 265,542 units, while Sony was able to convince only 81,579 Japanese gamers to buy a PS3.
As usual, Microsoft wasn’t able to make an impression and the Redmond-based company has failed again to find the key to success in the Japanese market. With only 13,127 Xbox 360s sold, maybe Microsoft should consider to do something more radical to attract the gamers.
In the handheld gaming market, Sony has managed to surpass Nintendo and, for the first time in the past six months, it has sold 415,415 units of its PlayStation Portable compared to only 255,124 units of Nintendo DS.
It seems like to PSP sales were boosted by the release of Capcom’s "Monster Hunter Freedom 2G", that was the top selling game in March.
As for 2007, Enterbrain reported that the Japanese gaming market saw a 3.8 percent increase in combined hardware and software revenues compared to 2006. The total value has reached a total of 677 billion yen ($6.6 billion).
Nintendo Wii sold 3,741,946 units, more than double than Sony’s
PS3, which sold only 1,197,418 units. For
Microsoft’s Xbox 360, 2007 was a real disaster in
But the real champion is Nintendo DS with 6,343,547 units sold and a lifetime total estimated at 22,169,761, Sony’s PSP sold 3,427,971 units and a lifetime total of 8,574,026.
In 2007, Wii Fit was the best selling game, although the
game was released in December. However in just one month the game sold 1,762,193
units, compared to 1,659,315 for Mario Party DS and 1,616,377 for Wii Sports.