Japanese hardware sales hit new low

The downturn in the Japanese games market continues to affect hardware sales, with the latest results sinking to a new low.

The Nintendo DS was the best selling format of the week, but could manage only 39,464 sales (33,833 for the DSi and 5,631 for the DS Lite) - down almost 24,000 units overall.

With the software chart also reporting record lows in terms of unit sales, the PSP saw demand fall by over 15,000 units to 27,536.

Wii sales were down 8,000 units to 16,233, the only good news for Nintendo's home console format being that it kept ahead of the PlayStation 3, which fell by over 7,000 units to 10,932.

The Xbox 360 was unable to sustain its upturn in sales from earlier in the year, being again outsold by the PlayStation 2 at 4075 units to 3854 - despite top three success for BioWare's Mass Effect in the software charts.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...es-hit-new-low