Here are numbers from Famitsu comprising of their annual top 500 chart with marketshare for each system all the way back to the year of 2000. The annual top 500 chart is very good I think for comparing the consoles softwaresales and seeing just what system dominates in Japan. So who´s the king then?

Well it seems that Japan has always chosen a clear winner somehow in every generation. If I remember correctly the winners of each generation before this decade has been NES,SNES,PS1 with GB selling huge amounts of software over a long period of time.

From these numbers you can see that PS2 dominated in the years from 2001-2005. But today the king to rule them all is without a doubt NDS. I used to think it was wrong comparing consoles with portables in sales but this generation it has become increasingly obvious that they all share the same arena. They all compete for developers and customers. This has become very evident with both NDS and PSP getting many games that traditionally went to consoles.

So if NDS easily is winning, who´s the runner-up in Japan this generation? That´s the big question. Back in the days of PS2 it was GBA but today the market seems split. Is it PSP? Wii? or could it even be PS3 in the long run? What do you think?

Personally it surprises me how little PSP still has sold softwarewise in Japan. Wii gets a lot of trash at the same time PSP is getting talks of being the second choise of system after NDS and sometimes even talked about as an equal to the DS. PSP is the runnerup in hardware but from these numbers it´s clear that NDS is in a league of it´s own and I´d say that Wii is actually the runnerup. Discuss

 EDIT: In the years of 2000-2003 the list is Famitsu top 300.

PS2 was a total beast on the consoles front.

DS is the new beast, Wii was shaping up to be like the PS2, but unfortunately sales didn't really pick up, mostly thanks to the terrible shovelware that flooded it in the first years and the fact that Nintendo now releases way less big games than it once did.

DS is the one to watch, but it's already slowing down.

Are you sure about that? I agree that the market is down as a whole mostly becuase of the bad economy and we´re getting quite a bit into this generation so it seems logical that sales for all consoles are slowing down but it seems to me that DS is having a monster year now in 2009 with Dragon Quest IX, Pokemon G/S and Tomodachi Collection sure to be mulitimillion sellers. I think that DS will have a better year in 2009 than in 2008. Next year I have no idea.

What are the sales Year to date? If you check those numbers you posted, the DS seems to have peaked on its 3rd and 4th years.

5th year is already down 10 million, and this year the only big games for the DS have been DQIX and Tomodatchi, with Pokemon coming out today. Overall numbers will be down from last year, as there isn't anything that big after Pokemon in 2009.

http://vgchartz.com/jyearly.php

16 million games sold so far, 10 more to go and nothing very big save for Pokemon and maybe Prof Layton and Zelda. Not enough to go over last years numbers.

You may be right. I thought that sales so far this year would be higher than 16 million. Oh well. Maybe holidaysales will be big though? I don´t know how much software are usually sold in December but Nintendo traditionally have huge holidays. I also think that the somewhat "poor" sales quite a bit are down to the fact that the economy in Japan is in such a bad shape.

They might match last years performance, which is not bad, but it will probably fall below what it did last year, and then next year we will see a bigger decline, since there's not much left besides DQVI and another Layton for 2010. Golden Sun is there too, but there's nothing that could sell many millions, as opposed to this and all the previous years.

Yes I do believe next year will be down in softwaresales by quite a bit since there were some really big heavyhitters arriving this year. But, Nintendo could surprise us with some big releases next year like a Super Mario All Stars DS and Mario Party DS 2. I´ve heard rumors about those two but they could be just that, rumors. One game for next year that I do think will be big and surprise all is Level 5´s Studio Ghibli collaboration Another World. Studio Ghibli is like Disney over in Japan and this is the first videogame that they´re involved in. The game is also supposed to play like a traditional rpg a la Dragon Quest. I fully expect the game to be DS next third party million seller. It´s supposed to release next spring. If it all comes together I could see this game becoming huge.

On another topic:

Isn´t it strange that Wii gets a lot of critisism and PSP mostly good talk since Wii still is selling more software than it? With all this talk about Japan being a portable country and NDS and PSP dominating. Not true, NDS is dominating. Everything else is just fighting for what´s left and right now Wii is ahead of PSP when it comes to software. That may all change when it comes to MHF3 but right now I´d say PSP´s achievements are overrated while Wii gets a lot of unfair critisism. Sure I expected Wii to become even bigger than it is today but it´s still doing better than what many are giving it credit for.

The criticism goes to Wii only having like 4 - 5 mega sellers, while the rest of the games end up having mediocre sales or really bad ones.

PSP games end up selling more than Wii games on average, so what people may be saying is that Wii games hardly turn into hits. But the truth also is that third parties aren't even trying anymore. Second half should be better though for all consoles.

the numbers show handhelds slowing gaining ground from 2000-2008. In 2001 it is only 25% of the market, now it's more like 66%.

Yes but if you look at the chart of PSP it is not totally different. The chart is very dominated by a couple of titles, take away the Monster Hunter games and you´re left with no millionsellers for instance. I do understand what you´re saying and agreeing somewhat. It seems that many smaller titles for Wii underperform but sometimes I think that the software for Wii is more closely studied for some reasons and it´s failures more discussed than the failures of other platforms.

PSP seems to have a bigger "baseline" of games in the 100-200 k range but very few games that are really sizable hits. Wii has far more megahits but still get a huge critisism for what does bad on the platform. The fact is, if we go by the total salesnumbers Wii is ahead of PSP.  But in a way all this is somewhat meaningless compared to NDS who has both a number of HUGE sellers AND a broad baseline of games in the 100-200 k range.