Japanese charts: Sony catching Nintendo

By Robert Purchese Published 30 January, 2009

As Left 4 Dead just misses top ten.

Sony continues to put pressure on Nintendo as the gap in Japanese hardware sales closes.

Combined sales of Wii and DS fell more than those of PS3, PS2 and PSP, narrowing the difference to 31,069 units, according to Media Create data on NeoGAF.

Both companies count one extra top 50 software entry for the week ending 25th January. The Wii now accounts for 12 spaces and PS3 fills nine spots.

Wii RPG Fragile (Namco Bandai) makes a debut at two, with the only other top ten new entry, Zill O'll Infinite Plus on PSP, taking four. This is a remake of Zill O'll on PSone and later PS2.

Overall, the DS amasses 20 best-sellers, the PSP six, the PS2 two and the Xbox 360 one - Left 4 Dead at 12.

This Week Last Week Title Platform Weekly Sales Lifetime Sales
1 1 New Control Play! Mario Power Tennis Wii 31,000 88,000
2 New entry Fragile Wii 26,000 26,000
3 Re-entry Taiko: Drum Master Wii Wii 25,000 316,000
4 New entry Zill O'll Infinite Plus PSP 25,000 25,000
5 5 Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (PSP the Best) PSP 25,000 357,000
6 6 Rhythm Tengoku Gold DS 20,000 1,614,000
7 9 Wii Fit Wii 19,000 3,196,000
8 4 Dissidia: Final Fantasy PSP 18,000 866,000
9 2 Megami Ibunroku: Devil Survivor DS 18,000 74,000
10 8 Wagamama Fashion: Girl's Mode DS 17,000 684,000
Platform This Week Last Week This Year Lifetime
Nintendo DS 65,294 81,334 478,936 25,598,579
PlayStation Portable 38,280 42,559 298,422 11,656,586
Nintendo Wii 26,770 32,333 220,311 7,699,212
PlayStation 3 17,708 20,690 127,196 2,749,624
Xbox 360 7663 9576 47,487 878,027
PlayStation 2 5007 5760 30,013 21,429,537
Platform This Week Last Week This Year Lifetime
Nintendo DSi 51,618 62,525 1,068,052 1,606,229
Nintendo DS Lite 13,676 18,809 254,047 17,430,308
Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • electrolite #1 3 years ago

    'Catching'? Interesting use of semantics

  • Santino #2 3 years ago

    its the same thing every week, why not just use a proper headline that is actually accurate? how in the hell is this closing the gap?

  • Psychotext #3 3 years ago

    "Nintendo dropping toward Sony" :D

  • secombe #4 3 years ago

    Not this again!

    Anyone with half a brain can see that the lead is still increasing, just by a smaller margin. The PS3 hasn't even caught Wii Fit up yet, in fact, even that is still increasing the gap.
    Edited by 1 at 30/01/09 @ 15:03

  • CitizenGeek #5 3 years ago

    I'm liking those Dissidia numbers. Square Enix are pretty much garunteed at least 500,000 in sales whenever they put "Final Fantasy" on a game name :D

  • Tonka #6 3 years ago

    I see the Balance board managed to further distance itself from the PS3 yet again.

  • Doctor_What #7 3 years ago

    The gap in weekly sales is less than it was previously - therefore it's catching up. Is that too tricky to understand?

  • cyacomini #8 3 years ago

    Not so much 'catching up', perhaps 'gaining on' would have been more inline with reality.

  • udat #9 3 years ago

    It's not catching up at all you idiot, it's merely losing ground less quickly.

    If I am going 80 mph, and the car in front of me is going 150mph and then slows to 100 mph am I "catching it"? No.

  • secombe #10 3 years ago

    The gap in weekly sales is less than it was previously - therefore it's catching up. Is that too tricky to understand?

    'Catching' would imply that it's selling more than the Wii on a weekly basis, and therefore closing the overall gap.

    99.9% of peoples understanding of 'catching' would probably mean that eventually the thing behind will catch up with the thing in front. How can it be catching, when you could continue on to infinity and the Wii would just be stretching its lead further and further?!

    Even "Wii Fit continues to outsell the PS3" would make more sense.

  • Psychotext #11 3 years ago

    It's not just that... the PS3 didn't increase its sales from last week, they decreased. It's just that the Wii's sales decreased by more. :)

    Last week, Wii - 32k, PS3 - 20k.
    This week, Wii - 26k, PS3 - 17k.

  • groovychainsaw #12 3 years ago

    Still, even nintendo weren't expecting the drop off in japanese hardware sales - they have had to reduce their profit expectations reccently, which hammered their share price... maybe people are over the waggle?

  • ronuds #13 3 years ago

    LOL, the "relative gap" is closing and that's all that matters!

    /is a non-believer

  • cirej2000 #14 3 years ago

    Oh thank you guys! I'm so happy that folks jumped on the stupid title about Sony "catching" Nintendo. Befuddling, it is.

    And PSP isn't catching the DS any more than the PS3 is catching the Wii.

    Nintendo is cutting their estimates due to the fact that us boneheads here in the US have overborrowed and overspent and the USD is worth so little relative to the yen, that Nintendo is making less profit. With the Japanese console market being so small these days, that hits them by a good chunk when you look a things...and with the stimulus package currently on the table...well...I'll leave that to another day.


    SONY is losing ground...STILL and for the foreseeable future. And Killzone 2 won't change things. Well, it will cause me to buy a PS3 game for the 3rd time in 12 months.

  • ryohazuki1983 #15 3 years ago

    Ps3 dropped 14% wii 17% it is catching up? Wii sales dropping at a higher rate than ps3. Well is true if trend continues. That or I have no idea what I'm on about (which is true)

  • roz123 #16 3 years ago

    The person who wrote that headline should get a slap because Sony is not "catching Nintendo" at all.

    Next time make a headline that reflects the figures please, so i wont click on it thinking "really thats interesting" and then find out its a complete load of bollocks.

  • coolbritannia #17 3 years ago

    Sony to close gap by 2067

  • hiddenranbir #18 3 years ago

    There is no limit to the series!

  • miiiguel #19 3 years ago

    EG's known MS bias is getting way too complex...

    /scratches head...

  • zzyzx #20 3 years ago

    Moving 56% more units one week and then 51% more the next equals "being caught?"

    Maybe Nintendo can release "Brain Training: Voodoo Accounting" to help people understand articles like this one.



  • Incarta #21 3 years ago

    Why do we care about the japanese chart anyway?

    Oh, right. Sales charts = hits

    =P

  • electrolite #22 3 years ago

    @incarta

    What a bizarre thing to say. Console sales = more potential for software. Why would we not care about the Japanese charts? It's a worldwide business and a lot of software houses are based there

  • monkeywithnoeyes #23 3 years ago

    well now we know who's buying the ps3's.

    The 360 really is pittyfull in Japan..it looks like they'll be lucky if they hit a million sales there this generation

  • djed #24 3 years ago

    whaaaaa?!?! subject ?!?"?" me no english good yes?!+1+1 sentencees aaaaaaa nlysis?!

  • Incarta #25 3 years ago

    @electrolite

    Very true. I guess I get grumpy because EVERYWHERE seems to post the Japan sales EVERY WEEK but most everywhere else totally ignores the UK charts. Isn't the market in Europe as big (if not bigger) then japan's these days?
    And we can use the argument about alot of the developers being there, but, as you say, we are in a worldwide market, so surely these companys would be just as interested in our console sales.

  • ne0star #26 3 years ago

    I think a better way to phrase that headline would be 'Nintendo sales have dropped'

    Sony haven't sold any more than they usually do, Nintendo have just sold less.

  • robson_wii #27 3 years ago

    This kind of reporting is as bad as Americas constant attempts to re-write history in their favour and the public generally tend to see straight through it.

  • evild_edd #28 3 years ago

    The real story here is the relative success of L4D. Not only is it well deserved, but is an indicator that the Japanese are opening their eyes to western developed titles - a trend that is gradually increasing/improving over recent years.

    In fact, it could be seen that MS push of 360, whilst not as successful as they'd have liked, is actually improving Japanese understanding of western titles and making some in-roads in to that market. Yes, the 360 sells consoles on the back of JRPG exclusives, but if those owners go and buy wetern-developed FPS titles then that's a good thing IMHO.

    360 has actually done better in Japan than I expected. Reaction feels more positive to it than to the original Xbox, and the total sales are creeping towards the 1,000,000 mark....

    P.S. Just so I don't get fanboy accusations, yes I know the the Playstation consoles has also delivered western-developed titles to the Japanese market with some success - GTA and LBP come to mind. All this is good news IMHO.

  • sneetch #29 3 years ago

    If you cover one eye, turn your head to one side and squint it kinda looks like Sony are catching up... or a sailboat. More like a sailboat, tbh.