Soldato
With still a week left to go until the end of the first half of the year, the Nintendo DS has sold a huge 2.5 million units in Japan - with over 1.6 million being Lite and over 8600,000 being the original. This means that in Japan, the PSP falls woefully behind the two with 772,000 units sold and the PS2 comes in at 663,000. We've seen the M-Create charts released week after week showing the dominance of the DS hardware in Japan, but now it is incredibly easy to see how well the DS is doing overall.
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The PSP, meanwhile, has clearly failed to capture the imagination of the Japanese market; a year and a half after it launched, the system is selling only marginally more than the venerable PS2, whose primary market now must surely lie in gamers replacing broken systems or buying second consoles for younger siblings.
What this means for the fate in Japan of the forthcoming PS3 and Wii consoles is a tricky subject. Both next-gen systems closely follow the philosophies of their handheld predecessors; the Wii is innovative, accessible, cheap and low-powered, while the PS3 is more traditional, very powerful, very expensive and fully kitted out in terms of media functionality.
Japanese consumers have clearly preferred the former approach in handheld hardware; if they show such a strong inclination in home console hardware, then Sony may have a real problem on its hands in its home territory, even despite the presence of franchises such as Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy on the system.
Gamesindustry.biz
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The PSP, meanwhile, has clearly failed to capture the imagination of the Japanese market; a year and a half after it launched, the system is selling only marginally more than the venerable PS2, whose primary market now must surely lie in gamers replacing broken systems or buying second consoles for younger siblings.
What this means for the fate in Japan of the forthcoming PS3 and Wii consoles is a tricky subject. Both next-gen systems closely follow the philosophies of their handheld predecessors; the Wii is innovative, accessible, cheap and low-powered, while the PS3 is more traditional, very powerful, very expensive and fully kitted out in terms of media functionality.
Japanese consumers have clearly preferred the former approach in handheld hardware; if they show such a strong inclination in home console hardware, then Sony may have a real problem on its hands in its home territory, even despite the presence of franchises such as Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy on the system.
Gamesindustry.biz