Or realize its 20k difference, where the US has the Wii at approx 170k more units than PS3.

We need to discuss the global picture here. Japan is a dried out market

 This is a huge turnaround... If the Wii's drop stays, it's one of the biggest drops (marketshare wise) in a long time in Japan.

Look at the marketshare previous generations (winner only)

6th gen: 85%

5th gen: 66%

4th gen ~ 75%

3rd gen: ~ 85%

If we're now looking at just 55% for the winning console, that's pretty odd. It states that something has happened in Japan. It's no longer "Japan picks a console and sticks to it".

Honestly, I find this far more interesting than Americas, where Wii keeps 54-58% marketshare every week.

You can expect the PS3 to outsell the Wii every day for a few months around the FF 13 in Japan.

@ Oyv ususally Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were on the same system. That's why you see the split now.

LOL

@oyvoy - You have to put 2 factors into this equation - No Wii software pushing it, and RE5 bundles for the PS3. Its not a normal situation and will likely return to the Wii outselling the PS3 again, especially once the new DQX and MH3 games release. The Wii has been in a software lull for months.

Granted Japan is a weird market. What was a Sony dominated land for 2 generations has seemingly turned a cold shoulder to Sony, favoring Nintendo. Currently, sales show the Wii at approx 2.5 times ahead of Sony. The one other factor that has to be considered is that the 360 is getting some respect in Japan, where last gen, the XBox wasn't a factor much at all in regards to Japanese marketshare. If it were just Nintendo and Sony, it'd be 65-70% marketshare for Nintendo.

The 50% mark is 6mil units. (approx 8 mil for Nintendo, 3 mil for Sony, and 1 mil for XB360 = 12 mil total consoles sold in japan. Thus half -50% would be 6 mil units). Right now, Nintendo is somewhere between 60-70%, (as 9 mil units = 75%). With Sony only making short term gains of 20k units on the Wii, the numbers aren't changing much. As stated before, there's potential on the horizon for the Wii to go back to doubling HD sales combined.

Don't get cocky!

In otherwords, it's the fable version of shovelware.

Software sales YES, hardware sales NO

Off Topic: RoTB ,what game is this in your sig? Seens interesting.

@Topic: The market in Japan is hand-held oriented, console games are losing interest badly for the last few months, and the huge depression of Japanese market doesnt help.

The thing we need to see is how things work out when there is no high acclaimed games out. Sony is lucky to have the next few weeks locked on with some games coming up. MS dont have this, they hope to still capitalise in the sales of REV and SO4. Nintendo have a few hyped games coming up as well. We'll see then.