PS3 sales up 53 percent in Japan

Paul Sinclair • Mar 10, 2007 • Comments ()

Sales for Sony Corp.'s Playstation 3 increased 53 percent in Japan on the release of a new software offering in Japan.

Media Create Co. on Fri. reported that the PS3 sold 44,000 units between Feb. 26 and Mar. 4, up from 20,676 units the week prior.

Namco Bandai's release of Gundam Musou ranked at the No. 1 position on the software sales charts to help increase sales for the latest Playstation. Musou sold 170,725 units to easily claim the top selling position.

The increase in sales helped minimize its sales distance from Nintendo Co.'s Wii, which sold near 58,000 units in the same period. The week prior Wii outperformed the PS3 by 4-to-1.

Gundam Musou was the only PS3 game title to rank in the top 50 software sales. The top ten were dominated by Nintendo DS handheld software.

Sony this week unveiled Home, a new social networking division for the PS3 that will launch this fall.

The company expects to ship 6 million PS3 units worldwide by fiscal Mar.