http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=Japan&cons2=PS2&reg2=Japan&cons3=PS3&reg3=Japan&weeks=156

A little over a year ago the Wii was tracking over the PS2, hell the sell out situation was just as bad in Japan as it was in the rest of the world, slowly but surely the sales have dropped in Japan and it's been the home console market in general.

Part of this has to be connected to the Japanese economic situation, as many of the biggest drops happened around the time the worlds markets were getting hit hard early 09.  But as you can see in the graph what happened to push the PS2 like it did?  Early adoption from Japanese developers unlike Wii?  Economic boom?  Simply better marketing?  Or are Japanese gamers just not that into gaming as they were in the PS2 era?

At the rate its going the Wii won't match the PS2 sales unless the generation runs long.  But the two questions here I pose are A What made PS2 in Japan take off? and B What has been the ultimate cause of the failure to take off of the Wii/abnormally low console sales in general.

Note: Read the OP, and don't turn this into a console war thread, with stupid posts like "cause item A sucks" or statements of equal stupidity, civil/intelligent debate is, however, much welcomed.

First of all cheap dvd player (like for the fist months) and a lot of software releases.

What hurts the most for PS3/Wii is the popularity of their handhelds.

well simply the ps2 dominated and sold for a long time. The wii is not dominating every demographic, it has created somewhat of a market split. This is only part of the reason though, there is a recession and handhelds are getting a bigger piece of the pie.

I've yet to see any evidence that an extra feature has sold consoles, more or less they become tie breakers when people can't decide between two consoles, however the software argument, has some worth.  I do know when the PS2 was about to launch in Japan, it was hyped to high heaven and completely obliterated Dreamcast out of the gate, it helped that they just came off the PS1 generation with some of the best Japanese developed games of all time.

I think what ain't let the Wii dominate in Japan like the PS2 are the handhelds. Consoles aren't as important as they were in last gen, and the handhelds are the main gaming devices in japan right now.

True, I also thing how not many note worthy Japanese games have launched this generation outside of a few Nintendo games, and a lot of Square stuff on the handhelds.  Probably the biggest Japanese game so far for the home consoles has been Monsterhunter which as already proven to do better than home console versions last gen.  Maybe the over lack of home console support is the reason for the overall drop in week to week sales.

Well it was hyped as an dvd player aswell but if you want easy evidence check the launch week of PS2.  The PS2 sold more hardware than software.

Yeah, the biggest japanese game is a DS exclusive, the big console tittles have taken too long to launch. Also notice how this generation the Wii isn't the only console with big japanese games, an example is FFXIII which is in the PS3, and it's bigger than MH3

You could say the same for the PS3, but many consoles launch with lower attach rates due to the lack of compelling software, bought on the promise that developers will deliver.

I'm gonna blame this primarily on Japanese developers not being onboard the Wii bandwagon from day one like they were with the ps2. Sure we had a few guys announcing projects for the platform, like Marvelous, and even a few bigger titles like Monster Hunter 3, but it wasn't much, and it seems only a part of the niche Japanese development community are really supporting the Wii, what with games like Ar Tonelico III, 3D Dot Game Heroes, and Alterier Rorona being announced for ps3. Then there are four large franchises the ps3 never lost - Metal Gear Solid, Yakuza, Final Fantasy, and Gran Turismo - all exclusive to the ps3 in Japan.

Developers are split, and as such gamers are split. The fact that the ps3 is doing so well compared to the Wii, especially right now, is a telling sign of this.