Business As Usual In Japan

Nintendo comprehensively won the hardware sales fight during July in Japan. The Wii beat the PlayStation 3 by over 12,000 units over the month and the Nintendo DS family (DS Lite, DSi and DSI LL) outsold the Sony handhelds (PSP-3000 and PSPgo) by almost 2-to-1.

Week Ending July 4th

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 S launched in Japan during the final week of June with impressive (for the 360) sales of 17,370.  So the big question at the start of July was how well would its sales hold up once the Japanese had got over their initial excite of being able to buy a slightly smaller, red-ring-less 360.

The expected answer came with a fall in sales of 58% (10,067).  During the remainder of July unit sales of the 360 stabilised at around the 6,000 mark which actually demonstrates good progress for Microsoft as prior to the release of the 360 S the weekly sales of the 360 hovered around the 3,000 point.  I suspect Microsoft will be happy with a doubling of sales in their weakest territory.

The Nintendo DSi LL (known as the DSi XL outside Japan) also started the month falling back from an end-of-June high but its fall, from 41k to 32k, was far less precipitous.  Its sales were likely supported by the release of football (that’s real football, as opposed to a rugby-like game with helmets and shoulder pads that would put the stars of Dynasty to shame) title Inazuma Eleven 3 which sold over half a million units.

Week Ending July 11th

This weeks two big software titles were Wii Party and White Knight Chronicles 2 which sold 235k and 176k units respectively.  Sony’s promotion of WKC2 included, unusually for a high-fantasy RPG, live video of young Japanese women playing the game in bikinis.  Can you imagine the Daily Mail article advertising like that would spawn if SCEE tried something like that when WKC2 releases over here.

Wii and PS3 sales for the week took opposite courses to each other and unfortunately for Sony it was the Wii that saw a small rise in sales while the PS3 slipped back slightly.  The Wii’s rise was just enough to put it ahead of the PSP-3000 for the week, albeit by less than 200 units, giving Nintendo the top two consoles overall.

Week Ending July 18th

Software for Nintendo’s consoles topped the charts again with new Fire Emblem and Dragon Quest titles, both selling 136k units to beat PS3 baseball (like rounders but featuring more helmets and body armour – I’m seeing a pattern here) title Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2010 which racked up unit sales of 120k.

Powerful Pro Baseball also released on the PSP and while that version of the game only made it to sixth in the software charts with sales of 61K the PSP-3000 won the weekly sales fight beating the DSi LL by almost a thousand units.  That restored balance to the hardware chart with the two version of the PSP once more occupying first and last.

Week Ending July 25th

The final week of the month saw the previous week’s trend continue with the PSP-3000 and DSi LL rising and falling by a similar amount respectively.  Elsewhere in the hardware chart this was compensated for by the DSi increasing its sales while the PSPgo fell back again to once more record sales of a little of 800 units.

Though the gap narrowed the Wii outsold the PS3 once more giving it a clean sweep for the month and with a dearth of big software releases Wii Party returned to the top of the software chart.  The PSP RPG Fate/Extra was the only new title to enter the top ten this week and managed to reach second spot with 72k sales compared to Wii Party’s 99k.

The Monthly Console and Corporate Fights

Across the month the Wii beat the PS3 (89,899 vs. 77,315), the DSs beat the PSPs (202,082 vs. 108,695) and the PS2 continued to beat the PSPgo (6,134 vs. 4,056).  Overall shares of the month’s hardware unit sales are little changed from June with Nintendo stealing a percentage point from both Sony and Microsoft.  Out of the 509,108 consoles sold Nintendo accounted for 57% (291,981), Sony 38% (192,144) and Microsoft 5% (24,983).

Here are the raw numbers for those who do not like them overcooked:

Source: Media Create