DS Owns Japanese PSP Sales in July

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September 8, 2006 - According to the latest reports from Enterbrain/ Famitsu's official data service, the month of July wasn't a very competitive one in regards to Japanese "PSP vs. DS" software sales. Of the top 50 selling games in that region for the month, nine of them were PSP titles against 23 games for the DS.

Six of the top 10 Japanese sellers were released for Nintendo's Dual-Screen handheld system (in fact, four of the top five), while the highest spot that a PSP game could manage was #16 (Tekken: Dark Resurrection). Also, with the exception of Winning Eleven 10 for the PlayStation 2, the only million-selling games in this top 50 were titles made for the Nintendo DS platform: New Super Mario Bros., Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, Animal Crossing, and Mario Kart DS have exceeded more than a million units sold apiece, with several of them selling more than double that.

Even more interesting is in the hardware numbers -- in the Japanese market, the PlayStation Portable is pretty much neck and neck with Nintendo DS system in units sold: 1.3 million systems sold each. But that's the original Nintendo DS system, the one that is no longer being manufactured or sold in Japan. The DS Lite skyrockets that number into the stratosphere: close to 4 million DS Lite systems have been sold since the formats introduction, which, combined with the original unit, kicks the system numbers through the roof at nearly five DS systems for every one PSP sold.

On the side, according to Japanese sales numbers the Game Boy line is clearly on its way out. While DS and PSP systems are selling in the millions, this year hasn't been as kind to the Game Boy Advance SP and Game Boy Micro: Only 200,000 SP units and 130,000 Game Boy Micro portables have been sold in Japan.

With rumblings of a possible PSP redesign in the works, this battle may get more heated in 2007. But for now the Nintendo DS is the clear handheld dominator in Japan.
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