Anilrgowda

In a staggering show of strength from the home fans, Sony has managed to achieve in just four weeks what it's taken Microsoft 52 to achieve, with Japanese sales of the PS3 sprinting past those of Xbox 360.

SPOnG wonders what Bill Gates is making of the following quote, which we reported on November 22nd this year:
I wouldn't change positions with them in a million years. I mean, we know what it's like to be a year late. We feel great about the position that we're in. And, of course, they're going to sell a lot in Japan. You know, Sony can make 80,000 bricks, and people would buy them.


At least you were right about Sony selling lots in Japan, eh, Bill.

Figures confirming this sales slaughter have been confirmed by Media Create, the Japanese sales tracking organisation. Its just-published hardware sales figures for the week of 27th November to 3rd December show PS3 hardware sales reach 187,836 units for the period, taking it beyond the Xbox 360's lifetime total of 178,070 units. If anybody was in any doubt about how much of an uphill struggle Microsoft has on its hands in Japan, that fact alone should hammer it home. It will be interesting to see how Friday's launch of Hironobu Sakaguchi's highly anticipated Blue Dragon RPG affects the sales of the Xbox 360 next week.

In other ‘next-gen’ news, the week ending 3rd December featured the Japanese launch of Nintendo's Wii. As you would expect, the Wii sold more hardware units than anything else. In fact, it sold more hardware units than everything else ... combined! And that includes the mighty DS Lite. In fact, the Wii has almost equalled the combined total sales of the Xbox 360 and PS3 in its opening week.

The actual figures make interesting reading, with the Wii selling 350,358 units on its first two days on sale. The Second Place rosette went to stablemate DS Lite with 176,901 units followed by the PS3 at 31,436. The PSP and PS2 followed in 4th and 5th places with 23,917 and 23,115 units respectively. The Xbox 360 sold an above-average 7,007 units and nothing else sold over 2,000 units. The Wii ended up with just over 57% of the total sales for the week.

The Wii launch figures make it the second most popular Japanese hardware launch in history, losing out only to the DS' astounding 468,883 unit launch weekend just over two years ago. Apparently, Nintendo knows just when and how to launch its consoles.