DS flying ahead of PSP in Japan

Sales figures in Japan show Nintendo's handheld console to be flying ahead of its nearest competitor, thePSP.

By Corrine Zuniev

Bloomberg announced today that the Nintendo DS is currently outstripping the PSP in sales in Japan by a margin of almost 3 to 1.

Up to the end of January 2007, Japanese PSP shipments were sitting 5 million units, with 14.4 million DS units soldby the end of 2006. Nintendo figures state that by the end of February, the company hassold 15.38 million DS and DS Lite handhelds in the country.

In addition to the poor sale of the PSP in the region, only one game for the handheld (Monster Hunter Freedom 2; ranked number two) is even on the Japanese top 40 software charts. This pales in comparison to the 26 DS games in the ranking, as well as an impressive five DS games in the top ten.

Nine out of the top 26 DS titles have sold over one million copies each. Pokemon Diamond/Pearl have passed 5 million sales, and Brain Training 2, New Super Mario Bros, and Animal Crossing: Wild World have each sold over 4 million copies.

Outside of Japan, the PSP is fairing much better. Sony's figures state that by 2006's end, 6.23 million PSPs had sold on the general Asian market, 9.58 million were sold in the US, and 8.89 million were sold in Europe, making a total of 24.70 million overall.

Still, the DS and the DS Lite combined have sold more units worldwide, which is estimated at somewhere around 40 million units. Ten million handhelds were sold in North America by the beginning of 2006 and by the end of the year figures for the rest of the world were doing similarly.

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