What caused this boost in Xbox 360 sales?

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Xbox 360 Beats PS3 in Japan

US, August 21, 2009 - Japan just finished up its summer break period. In the gaming world, Nintendo platforms tend do particularly well during this time, a trend that went unchanged this year. 

Media Create's top 10 for the week covering August 10 through August 16 saw a resurgence for older titles. Dragon Quest IX took the top spot for the first time in two weeks. Nintendo's Friend Collection continued an upward trend in weekly sales, placing second (a chart from rival tracking firm Enterbrain actually put Friend Collection in first!) 

Also notable this week was Wii Sports Resort, which topped the million mark. Monster Hunter 3 continued its approach of one million as well. Last week, it managed to top total lifetime sales of PS2's Monster Hunter 2. 

Here's the full top 10: 

• 1. Dragon Quest IX (Square Enix, DS): 127,000 (3,644,000)
• 2. Friend Collection (Nintendo, DS): 126,000 (728,000)
• 3. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo, Wii): 105,000 (1,006,000)
• 4. Monster Hunter 3 (Capcom, Wii): 93,000 (750,000)
• 5. SD Gundam G Generation Wars (Namco Bandai, PS2): 57,000 (233,000)
• 6. Tales of VS (Namco Bandai, PSP): 35,000 (168,000)
• 7. Puyo Puyo 7 (Sega, DS): 29,000 (109,000)
• 8. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G PSP the Best (Capcom, PSP): 27,000 (889,000)
• 9. Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (Nintendo, DS): 18,000 (51,000)
• 10. Penguine no Mondai X Tenkuu no 7-Senshi (Konami, DS): 18,000 (90,000)

The hardware race saw slight boosts for most platforms. Even PS3 saw a tiny boost, although the system continued with overall slow sales, presumably due to shortages in the build up to the PS3 slim announcement. 

Here's the full hardware chart for the week. Last week's sales are in parentheses. 

• DSi: 87,936 (70,066)
• Wii: 47,732 (47,140)
• PSP : 39,882 (33,893)
• Xbox 360: 9,162 (5,436)
• DS Lite: 7,921 (8,699)
• PS3: 5,944 (5,826)
• PS2 : 4,907 (4,601)

 http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/101/1016834p1.html

People in Japan are waiting to buy the Slim...simple

DjFlex53 said: People in Japan are waiting to buy the Slim...simple

This week was from before it was officially announced, but then it was pretty obvious back then even if not official, so yes probably a major reason.

Uhhh....I think we all know the answer to this one.

Now if the 360.......hell, I'll even go as far and say the Wii beats the PS3 in sales the first few weeks after launch of the PS3 Slim, then that would be very interesting.

Sony bought them to make Microsoft feel like "Hey! we dont need a price cut we are doing fine!"

DjFlex53 said: People in Japan are waiting to buy the Slim...simple

Or the fact Sony stopped shipping more units to retailers. :P

There was an article saying PS3 hardware was getting hard to find due to low stock..

But the PS3 sells that low anyway, so yes the 360 is doing very well.

Wait wasn't the price cut announced on the 18th?   Shouldn't the PS3 be outselling the 360 by a large margin?

I actually think that Wii will beat the PS3 Slim a couple of weeks after it comes out until September when big games like Ninja Gaiden Sigma II and Tales of Vesperia come out on PS3. They'll probably boost PS3 Slim back over Wii for a period of time like RE 5 and Yakuza 3 did in the Spring, then the Wii's big games will come out and pretty much keep Wii over PS3 until Final Fantasy XIII and Gran Turismo 5 come out. Japan should turn into a seesaw battle between Sony and Nintendo for the rest of the gen after that.

As popular as the NES was, after PC Engine was released it frequently beat Famicon in Japan, and unless there is a Wii price cut, Wii versus PS3 Slim will probably go about like Famicon versus PC Engine.

It's not that PS3 sold less than previous weeks (they sold more than last week), there is an actual bump in 360 sales.

Weird.