With the PSPgo having launched on Sunday 1st November in Japan only its day-one sales appeared in the weekly sales figures for the Japanese market.  That is why we have waited until the first full week of sales figures were released before taking a look.

The advantage of looking at hardware sales figures from Japan is that weekly totals are published by Media Create.  Unlike the North American monthly sales figures from the NPD Group, Media Create’s numbers also break out the platforms into their important sub-models, so you can see how well the DS Lite is doing versus the DSi and more relevantly for us, how well the PSPgo is selling compared to the PSP-3000.

Japanese Hardware Sales W/E 01-11-2009

1. DSi – 37,517
2. PS3 – 36,061
3. PSP – 34,911
4. PSPgo – 29,109
5. Wii – 28,888
6. DS Lite – 6,902
7. 360 – 6,047
8. PS2 – 1,966

Whilst you can see that overall for the week the PSP-3000 outsold the PSPgo, remember that is just the first day of sales for the ‘go.  Given the news and rumours from other territories regarding the lacklustre sales performance of the ‘go they are respectable figures.

For example, in Australia media reports of less than 1,000 sales for the ‘go in its first week of release prompted a defensive statement from SCE Australia and New Zealand’s MD, Michael Ephraim, who said total sales for the first week were “not under 1000 but it’s slightly over 1000″.  Hardly a robust defence.

Strong PS3 sales this week were attributed to the release of Bayonetta.  Interestingly, the ratio of approximately 2-to-1 for first day sales of the PS3 and 360 versions that we reported on was maintained for the first week with the PS3 version racking up 135,000 sales versus the 360′s 64,000.

Japanese Hardware Sales W/E 08-11-2009

1. PS3 – 48,925
2. DSi – 37,421
3. PSP – 33,784
4. Wii – 31,810
5. PSPgo – 13,992
6. DS Lite – 5,515
7. 360 – 4,679
8. PS2 – 2,066

Week-to-week sales of the PSP-3000 have remained comparable but in the seven days following its launch, sales for the PSPgo more than halved.  That is likely not an unusual pattern.  For example, the game you are all sick of reading about, Modern Warfare 2, sold 1.23m copies on its Tuesday launch and went on to sell another 550,000 copies during the remainder of the week.

So as you might expect after such a short time on sale we can draw few sensible conclusions about how well the PSPgo has done.  It has not come close to PSP-3000 sales but we should not be expecting it to.  However, it has sold better than anecdotal evidence from other countries might have suggested.

From what Google will translate it seems that a Sunday launch is unusual for Japan which makes comparisons with other recent hardware launches difficult.  Perhaps one of our Japanese readers could clarify how unusual a Sunday launch is?  We will take another look at how well the PSPgo is selling after its first month on sale in Japan.  We may have to wait until Sony’s Q3 financial results in the new year to find out how it has sold worldwide.

It is good to see the PS3 topping the weekly Japanese hardware chart again.  Again it is a software driven sales spike following the release of World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010, known over here of course as Pro Evolution Soccer.  Including bundled copies, the PS3 version sold almost 218,000 copies, easily putting it at number one in the software chart having sold three times as many as the game in second spot, Pokemon Heart gold and Soul Silver.  The 360 version of PES 2010 sold around 7,000 copies reaching the dizzying heights of 22nd in the software chart.