Japan '08: PS3 Software Sales up 75%; DS Dominates

Nintendo and their handheld dominate Japan's 2008 software sales, but the PlayStation 3 experiences a healthy increase.

In Famitsu's end of 2008 numbers, they reveal that 47 of the top 100 best selling games in Japan are Nintendo DS titles.

Nintendo's handheld dominates in software sales, double the sales of its closest competition; the Nintendo Wii. This is despite software sales being down by 28% for the handheld, reflecting the shrinkage of Japan's video games market.

The rest of the chart is made up by fifteen Wii titles, fifteen PSP (which tops with Capcom's Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G), twelve PlayStation 2, and ten PlayStation 3.

The PlayStation 3 experienced the largest software sales growth, with a 75% increase over 2007; spearheaded by Metal Gear Solid 4. Still, this is all relative, since the console's still lagging behind the leaders.

The Xbox 360 has one entry in the top 100: Tales of Vesperia at number 82, selling 161,070 for Microsoft's console.

The performance of Nintendo's first party games on the Wii and DS has resulted in the company leading the top publishers list by quite some margin, even despite a drop over 2007.

TOP 5 PUBLISHERS - 2008 (2007 in brackets)

hopefully ps3 can sell much much more in japan this year. i know sony said when pressed regarding 360 sales bumps because of rpg releases. sony replied they have 5 japanese titles for release in 2009 made by themselfs.

@skeeuk

FF13 is literally confirmed for 09 in Japan

does it need anything else....even if it does Yakuza 3 (as strong as MGS franchise in Japan) & RE5 are coming.

but FF13....THE game is also coming!

Hopefully FF XIII will turn things around, because despite the increase, the Wii outsold PS3 3ish:1, and M$ efforts really aren't having that much of an effect. Still it is good from a Sony perspective to see the PSP doing well

@darth.

its highly probable that ff13 and gt5 are out this year, just them 2 titles will secure massive amounts of sales.

plus theres yakuza 3 and street fighter 4, not to mention many other games like god of war 3 etc. 2009 will have excellent games on ps3.

@skeeuk

GT5 dunno

also it seems GT as a franchise is still only hugely popular in EU....I keep on getting that impression from GT5 prologue sales in the NA & JAP compared to EU.

Well, depending when FFXIII launches, it can garantee 1mln hw more for PS3 this year, like instead of 930k it gets 1,93 mln.

ps3 is doing embarrassingly bad in its homeland .

Great for ps3 hopefully 2009 will be even better.

PS3 will come really close to the Wii this year. It could be the year of the PS3 in Japan, without a doubt. If GT5 comes out for the Holidays, then it's set.

FFXIII, Dinasty Warriors 5 Empires, Yakuza 3, Naruto, GT5, Demons Soul, Quantum Theory, Musou Orochi Z, Street Fighter 4, Bayonetta, The Last Remnant, FFvsXIII (maybe), Rapture (maybe), COD: WaW, Afro Samurai, FFVII: AC Complete with FFXIII Demo, PES 2010, Powerful Pro Baseball Spirits 7, Sonic Unleashed, Uncharted 2, God of War 3 (maybe). I have to admit that after making some research, it looks like 2009 is really the year of the PS3 in Japan. And thats without the unknown stuff.

All consoles have a good line up but it looks like PS3 wins.