PS3 doubles sales in Japan, but is anybody playing it in the US?

Mike Bantick
Saturday, 10 March 2007 06:15

Opinion and Analysis

I am confused; first the latest sales figures are out for the Japanese market, and Sony have had as big week, on the other hand a recent web poll shows the PlayStation 3 is being played the least, did everybody buy one for the Blu-ray drive?

Kotuku has gathered the latest weeks Japanese video game hardware sales, and for the Sony it shows a sharp increase in the bottom line.  The actual figures  from Media Create are;

* DS Lite: 111, 814 units
* PSP: 66, 156 units
* Wii: 57,972 units
* PS3: 44,000 units
* PS2: 15,364 units
* Xbox 360: 3,379 units

The PS3 Selling 44,000 units for the week ending March 4th is a jump of over 100% from the previous week.

We know how the Japanese love their giant robot battling games, so it comes as no surprise that the number one selling game in the same period was the PS3 version of Gundam Musou.  Sales of this game along with lack of units for the Nintendo Wii and enticing software for the Xbox 360 (after the Blue Dragon sales burst) sees the PS3 sales on fire.

But, what is happening in the US?  It seems that that despite record shipping and meeting of sales targets by Sony, The PS3 is hardly being played.

Of course, as we well know, 95% of all statistics can be altered to tell what ever story the author wants to get across, that may be the case here.

Read page two to find out.