PlayStation Portable Still Leads Japanese Market as Sales Drop across the Board

As the week ending May 16 passed, Media Create has released the charts regarding the Japanese hardware and software markets. And there are no real surprises in the numbers, besides an overall drop in sales.

The PlayStation Portable still reigns supreme as far as gaming consoles are concerned, with sales of almost 90,000 units. It might look impressive if we keep in mind the fact that the numbers are for a single week, but they are still about 10% lower than the ones the console recorded the week before. The sales of the Sony product are linked with sales of the videogame Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, which managed to remain second in the videogames chart with some 82,000 copies sold. Most of these sales also translate into PSP sales, as the game has a very interesting bundle offer, which comes with a special edition handheld.

The Nintendo Wii came in second place, with sales of around 67,000 units, also registering a fall in sales numbers. The Nintendo DS, which captured third spot, remained almost constant in its sales, with a little more than 50,000 units delivered to gamers.

The PlayStation 3 sales suffered a slump, going from over 10,000 units to some 8,000 consoles sold, while the Microsoft made Xbox 360 seems to be having a very tough time in Japan, with only 1,298 units sold in one week.

As far as videogames are concerned, the Nintendo Wii has three titles in the top five. Instant hit Mario Kart Wii is at number one, with more than 100,000 games sold over the week, number three is taken by Wii Fit, while Link no Bowgun Training takes number four. Apart from the above mentioned Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, only Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS: 7-tsu no Shima no Daibouken for the DS manages to break into the Wii-dominated top five.

A continued sales drop for game consoles and for videogames in Japan might add more weight to the argument for cutting console prices which was made after the NPD published the sales figures for April in North America.