14 DAY TRIAL // Sony must be pretty pleased with its performance on its home market and thinking about how it could replicate it all over the world. The PlayStation 3 has become the best sold gaming platform in Japan, probably because of the release of the Blu-ray version of the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie, which is packed with a demo version of the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII.
The PlayStation 3 has seen an increase of 42,000 units in sales, to reach 62,527, a number normally reserved for the Nintendo DS or for the PlayStation Portable. The Advent Children Blu-ray movie sold more than 270,000 units in its first week on shelves, which is extremely impressive compared with the best sold videogame of the week, which only moved 142,000 units.
The Nintendo DS is in second place, selling 44,725 units as the phasing out of the DS Lite, which is being replaced by the DSi, continues. The PlayStation Portable saw a dip in sales of less than 1,000 units, reaching just over 40,000 to stay in third place.
Worryingly for Nintendo, the Wii is also continuing its descending trend, with the home console only selling around 13,000 units, which is about 2,000 down from last week. It's now in fourth place, just ahead of the Xbox 360, which sold 8,652 units in one week. There are over 8 million Wiis in Japan at the moment and over 1 million Xbox 360s.
A Pokemon title is the best sold videogame in Japan. It is named Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Sky and is not a sequel but a spin off from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Explorers of Darkness. It sold around 142,000 units in its launch week. Sengoku Basara: Battle Heroes, from Capcom, for the PlayStation Portable, was in second place, with meager sales of about 28,000 units. The Mario & Luigi RPOG 3 from Nintendo, for the DS, is holding on to the third sport in the videogame chart.