Japanese hardware sales – DS Poke-rush drops off

By Patrick Garratt

A large DS sales surge brought on by the release of Pokemon Black and White in Japan is finally dropping off, although the Nintendo machine is now well on the way to passing 2 million unit sales in the country this year.

DS has now pulled well clear of PSP at the top of Japan’s heap, and should push through 2 million 2010 sales in November.

DS sales exploded in the week of Pokemon Black and White’s launch, more than doubling the previous week’s figures to over 85,000 sold in the week ending September 19.

The handheld saw a similar level of business last week, rising to nearly 90,000 sales for the seven days ending September 26. As you can see below, the week ending October 3 saw DS drop back to just under 55,000 units.

The majority of the figure was evenly split over DSi and DSi LL.

PSP-3000 was the biggest selling single SKU of the week with just over 37,000 machines sold.

Here’s the lot, amazing graph included. These figures are all sourced from Media Create.

Japanese hardware, January 4-October 3, 2010 (combined SKUs):

1. DS – 1,867,410
2. PSP – 1,560,295
3. PS3 – 1,079,247
4. Wii – 1,060,614
5. Xbox 360 – 164,736
6. PS2 – 64,163

Japanese hardware, year-to-date (click for bigger image):

Japanese hardware, September 27-October 3 (combined SKUs):

1. DS – 54,980
2. PSP – 37,842
3. PS3 – 20,363
4. Wii – 13,360
5. Xbox 360 – 2,769
6. PS2 – 1,247

Japanese hardware, September 27-October 3 (separate SKUs):

1. PSP – 37,088
2. DSi – 24,937
3. DSi LL – 24,246
4. PS3 – 20,363
5. Wii – 13,360
6. DS Lite – 5,707
7. Xbox 360 – 2,769
8. PS2 – 1,247
9. PSP go – 754

[Pic]