The first official Japan sales figures from the launch period of the PS3 and Nintendo's Wii have been released. The figures cover the period between October 30 to December 3 2006 and confirm what most industry experts had suggested.
Nintendo's DS handheld and its new Wii console have done remarkably well selling 768,171 and 350,358 units respectively. Sony's PlayStation 3 has not sold very well (187 836 units) but it is hard to draw any conclusions from these figures as the company has not confirmed the number of units it had available for the Japan launch. The PS3 shortages are likely to continue during the holiday season so it is unlikely that the current sales trend will change significantly. Microsoft's XBox 360 has also sold well for Japan but the figure of 25,554 units sold will definitely not bring a smile to Microsoft exec faces.
These figures suggest that the global figures recently released for the next-gen competitors may be fairly close to the truth. Those figures had suggested that Microsoft has sold 7,825,963 XBox 360's altogether while Sony has pushed 349,435 units and Nintendo has managed a remarkable 1,111,448 Wii's. These figures have not been confirmed but though the numbers may change it now seems that the ratio of the consoles sold will remain steady.
The full hardware sales figures for Japan over the period between October 30 - December 3 are:
Nintendo DS Lite: 768 171
Nintendo Wii: 350 358
PS3: 187 836
PSP: 114 270
PS2: 101 585
X360: 25 554
Game Boy Advance SP: 6 798
Game Boy Micro: 6 036
GameCube: 3 054
Nintendo DS: 1 186
Game Boy Advance: 111
Xbox: 20
