Japan Hardware: DS Sales Skyrocket

Want a surprise? Try this on for size – sales of Nintendo's DS series in Japan have had a sudden, massive boost over the last week, reflected in today's Hardware Chart (14th - 20th June 2010, courtesy Media Create). The biggest leap is in the large-screen LL handheld, which saw a whopping 19,045 unit increase to take the lead over the PSP 3000.

Home Console
Wii: 19,045 (20,588)
PS3: 17,175 (17,676)
360: 2,060 (3,225)
PS2: 1,568 (1,291)

Handheld
DSi LL: 30,183 (11,138)
PSP: 20,929 (21,662)
DSi: 18,214 (10,172)
DS Lite: 5,126 (3,108)
PSP Go: 837 (718)

(Previous week's unit sales in brackets for comparison)

Odd, eh? We suspect it has something to do with Nintendo's reveal of the upcoming 3DS, which will apparently speak to the core gamers of the world. A demographic that Japan is not short of by any small degree.

DSi sales increased by more than 8,000 units, and the DS Lite managed to better last week's figure by more than 2,000 units. It's not a total win for Nintendo platforms across the board as the Wii's sales figure has fallen slightly since last week – but it's still top of the console chart.

In comparison, PlayStation 3 sales continued to fall, as did numbers for the Xbox 360 and PSP 3000. The PlayStation 2 saw a small increase, as did the PSP Go despite languishing at the bottom of the handheld chart. Poor little thing, it's like it's really and truly given up.