14 DAY TRIAL // It's January and people are less interested in buying gaming consoles or videogames, as most of us have not yet managed to play all the titles we got during the holidays. So, it's only natural to see sales falling in Japan for the second week in one row. Although overall sales might be going down, the hierarchy is largely the same as in the last month.
The Nintendo DS is the best selling gaming platform, selling 81,334 units, which is about 20,000 lower than in the previous week. The share of older DS Lite consoles is getting smaller and smaller as they are being phased out in favor of the newer DSi models set to arrive in the United States and in Europe over the course of this year.
The PlayStation Portable from Sony is in the second spot as far as sales go, with unit sales standing at 42,559. The losses were about 18,000 units in one week, which means that, if this trend holds up, the PSP will overtake the Nintendo DS in no less than 20 weeks.
The Nintendo Wii sits comfortably in third sport overall and is the best selling home gaming console, with 32,333 devices moved to customers. The PlayStation 3 is again better than the Xbox 360. The Sony made console sold 20,690 units, down 7,500, while the Microsoft made console lost 1,000 units to reach 9,576. The PlayStation 2 is in last place, selling 5,760 units in one week.
A new title is number one in the videogame sales chart. Mario Power Tennis, in its New Play Control! incarnation, sold 57,000 copies in its first week, which is rather low considering that it is a Wii game that should appeal to a lot of gamers. At number two sits Devil Survivor, a game made by Atlus and a spin off from the Megami Tensei series. It is played on the Nintendo DS and combines strategy and role playing. Naruto managed to bring Namco Bandai the third spot, with sales of 44,000 units.