PSP Rises, DS Falls in Japan

Famitsu publisher Enterbrain shared a report today on the first half of the year in games over in Japan. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who keeps up on Japanese sales trends, but the PSP was the star of the show.

Sony sold 1.96 million PSP units over the first six months of 2008. This put it atop the hardware heap -- the first time the system has managed this feat for sales taken over a half year period. Perhaps more notable is that the system doubled its sales over the same period one year ago.

Nintendo's two platforms took a close second and third place. Wii was the second best selling platform for the period with 1.72 million units, placing it close to its performance last year. The DS sold 1.59 million units. This may not seem to shabby, except when you compare it to last year's performance of 3.71 million units over the same period.

The PlayStation 3 saw a Metal Gear Solid surge towards the end of the period to reach 540,000 units. This was a bit above last year's half million performance.

http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/886/886133p1.html

well, it was gonna happen - hey nintendo? RELEASE NEW DS HARDWARE! (and some first party titles)

Whilst I am pleased to hear the PSP finally starting to improve (I love all hardware!) it would be useful to see lifetime sales for each product. When you have a product that outsells its competitors many-to-one for a long time eventually the market for that product will become saturated and clearly a slowdown has to occur.

Not sure it is quite the time for a new DS just yet though. Remember the DS and Wii have opened up the market to new users, people who have never owned a console before. Nintendo needs to avoid giving those people the message that their new purchase is obsolete a few months after they bought it, otherwise a new hardware launch would probably bomb.

Remember that the DS sold extremely a lot in the past. I think we expected to see these numbers actually. Maybe a new model will change it, but not like in the past.