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Compared to the PS2 and 360, yes, but Sony was still pounded by Nintendo in Japan last week. I think that the market in Japan is becoming more geared towards mobile platforms (DS and PSP are doing exceptionally well), although your point about the 360 stands.

(The ranking page. Note that they use the common abbreviations for all but one of the various consoles. This charts the software sales over the past week, sorted by the last column. At the bottom of the page is another chart with, presumably, the hardware sales of the consoles over the past week.)

Japanese Source

The above are NPD statistics only. For Japan sales, see:

http://www.m-create.com/eng/index.html

www.neogaf.com

Hmm lets check this "PS3 takeoff". Lets look at the top 30 selling games in japan
last week. There was 1 PS3 game, 0 Xbox games, and 3 Wii games. Meanwhile there
were tons of DS games in the top 30.

It is sad when a "console's big name title" can barely take the top spot from a
game that has been out for 2 months.

PS2 - 2
PSP - 1
PS3 - 1
NDS - 23
WII - 3

Top 10:
01. (PS3, Sega) Virtua Fighter 5 - 48,346 / NEW
02. (WII, Nintendo) Wii Sports - 45,897 / 1,004,555
03. (WII, Nintendo) Wii Play - 36,090 / 879,432
04. (NDS, Nintendo) More Brain Age - 32,800 / 3,963,712
05. (NDS, Nintendo) New Super Mario Bros. - 29,026 / 4,118,078
06. (PS2, Capcom) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - 27,519 / 304,113
07. (NDS, Nintendo) Wario: Master of Disguise - 26,815 / 185,695
08. (NDS, Marvelous Interactive) Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On - 26,804 / 106,212
09. (NDS, Marvelous Interactive) Luminous Arc - 25,676 / NEW
10. (PS2, Sega) J-League Pro Soccer 5 - 24,468 / 131,541

Next 20:
11. (NDS, Nintendo) Animal Crossing Wild World
12. (NDS, Nintendo) Picross DS
13. (NDS, Nintendo) Common Knowledge Training
14. (NDS, Nintendo) Mario Kart DS
15. (NDS, Nintendo) Brain Age
16. (NDS, Pokemon) Pokémon Diamond
17. (NDS, Nintendo) English Training
18. (NDS, IE Institute) Kanji Brain Test 2M
19. (NDS, Pokemon) Pokémon Pearl
20. (NDS, Sega) Sangokushi Taisen DS
21. (NDS, Sega) Love+Berry
22. (PSP, Capcom) Monster Hunter Portable
23. (NDS, Square-Enix) Dragon Quest Monsters Joker
24. (NDS, Nintendo) Hotel Dusk: Room 215
25. (NDS, Rocket Co.) Kanji Test
26. (NDS, Bandai-Namco) Heisei Board of Education DS
27. (WII, Nintendo) Wario Ware Smooth Moves
28. (NDS, Nintendo) 1000 Recipes
29. (NDS, Nintendo) Kirby Squeek Squad
30. (NDS, Sega) Puyo-Puyo!

(borrowed from http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14255 4)
original sources include http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html and http://eg.nttpub.co.jp/ranking.html)

I have played the PS3 and I am not impressed. I wanted to like it... But after
trying it I am more likely to get an Xbox360 for my HD needs. Resistance Fall of Man
was a huge disappointment. Decent graphics, awful plot... I preferred Red Steel (Wii)
which is not even a great shooter. Heck I was playing Wii sports non-stop for a week.

So far I would have to say Wii has won first round hands down. Microsoft has a chance
to do well with the 360 if they keep the games coming, and Sony is in a world of hurt
unless they somehow get everyone and their mother to buy their $600 clunker. Even a
couple of really stellar games would have trouble selling the platform to me now.
I never wanted to get a Xbox but Sony really didn't give me much of a choice.

Having followed the Japanese sales charts for the last 7-8 months(via http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html - tracking units sold, not units shipped), Nintendo has Absolutely Dominated the charts. Outside of maybe 2-3 titles, no Sony or XBox system game has sat in the top ten beyond its initial launch week, and only getting that far if its a highly anticipated title such as a Final Fantasy or Gundam or one of the number of non-USfootball/basketball sports titles that they seem to enjoy. By and large this has been thanks to the DS, with Wii getting in on the action now too. for fun, here's the system sales for 1/29-2/4: DSL 146,073 Wii 65,740 PSP 31,216 PS3 18,727 PS2 17,540 Xbox360 6,130 GBM 1,050 GBASP 724 GC 306 DS 119 GBA 28 Clearly Sony's better off than MS and the DS Lite eats everything, but we all knew that already. Worth noting though is that the Wii sold almost as much as all three Sony platforms combined, and the week prior it sold slightly more, with limited availablity seeming to be the only thing keeping it even close. On the software side, the only PS3 title on the list is Enchanted Arms @ 47th

Here is the weekly chart (in Japanese)
http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html

How can you possibly say the DS gets a "B" when it outsells all the other consoles combined?

http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html (scroll down)

You're right, I couldn't find my source so I was going from memory.

That will boost the Xbox numbers here by a lot, certainly there hasn't been anything like a Must Have Game for the 360 in Japan in the year since it launched. But if the only games they keep releasing here are translations of American sports and shooters, well, they're screwed, because those games just don't sell in Japan. Get some RPGs, fighting games, something based on a good anime franchise, a trading card game, or a port of a game-center game and they might have a chance.

But look at the top 50 games in Japan this week. Not a single xBox game on the list. The console has been out a year...

What are you smoking? The psp is selling very well. In the US the PSP was outselling the original DS [not the DS lite] for the greater part of the year. In fact, if the DS didn't have a lead on launch the two systems would be selling evenly with the PSP in the lead.

http://www.videogamecharts.com/page3.html

In japan, the PSP was only a million or so units behind. Now that the DS lite is available, the DS is taking a much larger lead, but the two systems are still fighting neck and neck. The DS lite is outselling the PSP by a factor of four, but the PSP is still the #2 selling video game system in Japan.

http://www.videogamecharts.com/page5.html

These are actual sales numbers, and not shipped.

Given how many PSP gamers have decided to not play any new games, its interesting that PSP software sales is #2 in japanese marketshare.
http://www.m-create.com/eng/e_ranking.html

When will people on the internet stop assuming that because the ds is doing well, that automatically means that the PSP is failing? Stop listening to the blind fans on both sides and check the facts every so often.

Just to be clear, are you claiming that the previous AC keeps a highly-trained and well-respected cadre of market analysts up his ass?

Take a look at the numbers here and here. These are about four months apart, both before and after New Super Mario Brothers, and the January numbers are when there was still a shortage of DSes. Even then, they were moving three times the number of units. More recently, they're selling about six times as many, which has been pretty consistant since supply has been re-established.

Just to be clear, are you claiming that the previous AC keeps a highly-trained and well-respected cadre of market analysts up his ass?

Take a look at the numbers here and here. These are about four months apart, both before and after New Super Mario Brothers, and the January numbers are when there was still a shortage of DSes. Even then, they were moving three times the number of units. More recently, they're selling about six times as many, which has been pretty consistant since supply has been re-established.

Just to be clear, are you claiming that the previous AC keeps a highly-trained and well-respected cadre of market analysts up his ass?

Take a look at the numbers here and here. These are about four months apart, both before and after New Super Mario Brothers, and the January numbers are when there was still a shortage of DSes. Even then, they were moving three times the number of units. More recently, they're selling about six times as many, which has been pretty consistant since supply has been re-established.

This remains true in spite of Nintendo targeting everybody else for several years now. It could very well be that adult men are actually more intersted in console gaming than other people.

Look at the Japanese Sales charts. They are here. Now you tell me how successful they have been. Animal Crossing: Wild World has sold more than Final Fantasy 12 in Japan on a system with less than half the userbase, and it is still in the top ten. Brain training 1 and 2 have a decent shot at beating FF 12 too. It is crazy. I thought the DS would be successful in Japan, but it is kicking the ever-loving shit out of every other console combined.

Wake up and smell the coffee. The revolution has already begun, and in a mere 6 months, it will finally be televised.

gamegossip http://www.gamegossip.com/ get their figures from media create http://www.m-create.com/

Here is a link since the Lameness Filter of Slashdots mangled my data: http://www.m-create.com/eng/e_ranking.html

and

http://groups.google.com/group/Nintendo_Revolution /browse_frm/thread/6f7abfb48dd124c2/?hl=en#

Exactly why posting data is impossible on /.

Xbox 360 is going nowhere fast in Japan. Worse than original Xbox actually. Latest weekly sales available (*) show just 1288 units being sold (estimated) - even the Game Cube is still selling more. Of course, there's still the rest of the world, but one of Microsoft's objectives with Xbox 360 was to succeed in Japan. Looks to be a distant dream right now.

(*) See bottom of: http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html

The userbase of the DS and PSP in the U.S. are roughly even at this time, although Nintendo's had a good holiday season with multiple great games while the PSP only really had GTA.

But in Japan, the DS is smoking the PSP. In sales each month it comes in ahead of the PS2. And during several reporting periods, the DS has outsold all other consoles combined. And in the last reporting period (link only accurate to my statements temporarily, and may change soon in fact, the period I'm talking about is the week from Dec 26-Jan 1) eight of the ten top software titles on the list are DS games. The top-rated PS2 game, at #4, is Kingdom Hearts II, a very eagerly-awaited game in a nation that loves RPGs. #3 and #2, respectively, are Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing! #1 and #5 are in the Brain Training series that has yet to make it to the U.S., but are supposed to be coming soon.

But why is this important to us U.S. players? For these reasons:

1. It proves the DS is no Virtual Boy. It's here to stay.
2. It is vindication for the DS' unorthodox design elements. The DS' success in Japan is so tremendous by this point that it can only be called an unqualified success, even if the rest of the world had never bought a single DS.
3. Most importantly, Japan is the first market for many video game systems. There is a feedback loop here: if a system is popular, it attracts many developers, which make the system even more popular, etcetera. But the market here is the one in which many of those developers live and work, and that's gotta have a strong influence. That's one of the reasons why relatively few Japanese publishers developed for the original X-box.

It seems my personal observations do not jibe with the actual numbers in regards to the NintendoDS and PSP. I see PSPs all around (not in the creepy 6th Sense way, just they seem to be pretty popular), but I hardly ever see the DS. I looked up the latest sales numbers for this past week and it looks like the DS is outpacing the PSP by about 60% in Japan.

http://www.m-create.com/eng/e_ranking.html

Nintendo is still projected to ship more DSs than Sony will PSPs in the next twelve months.

Also, I would like to point Mr. Steele to the Japanese sales figures.

Two titles have been released in the past couple months that are very interesting: "DS Training for Adults: Work Your Brain" and "Gentle Brain Exercises."

Both of these games are tearing up the charts. This ain't kiddy fare. They are aimed squarely at gamers older than 18-24 years old. "Gentle Brain Exercises" was number 2 for the week ending the 10th. In it's second week out it sold over 75,000 units and beat the newly-released "We Love Katamari" which came in third.

Nintendo is not trying to cater simply to the children. They see the gaming population becoming older, but unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo sees gamers aging past college age.

Actively courting all ages may lose them some sales in the trendy young adult market, but I think this strategy is the best chance Nintendo has to maintain their sales and expand upon them. Though some won't admit it, there are a good deal of gamers (myself included) that are tiring of cookie-cutter Sci-Fi FPSs as we age beyond our early 20s. This population segment is only going to increase. Don't get me wrong, I like a good FPS as much as anyone, but when I have Unreal Tournament, Goldeneye 007, and Serious Sam, I don't see why Halo 2 should excite me.

I just think it is very wise to look at everyone as a potential gamer.

While Japan's certainly a major market, it isn't for this generation XBox sales---in the past week, it's sold a total of 161 (not a typo!) units accordinc to Media Create's sales numbers---fewer than the original GBA, and one for every 200 PS2s sold in the week.

While MS is banking on it doing better next gen than this, the Japanese titles creating what hype there is are both slated for Summer '06, some few months after the PS3 launch. Thus, barring something major coming up in the next few months, the initial Japanese shipment will probably suffice for some time.

As of May 8, 2005, the PS2 had 22.81% of the market in Japan, while the XBox had a 0.10%. (I can't figure out whether the data in the link is total console numbers, software numbers, or weekly sales, whatever) In a population of 127,417,244, that's a big deal. If the Japanese are not buying your console, developers are not writing for it.

You can go straight to the source at Media Create, http://www.m-create.com/ or wait for The Magic Box's console charts to get updated: http://www.the-magicbox.com/

These are for Japan only, though, and I've had trouble finding better results for the US (only other place that the PSP is out, I think) on http://www.gamasutra.com/ --search the news section for recent sales charts.

'We have gone from nowhere to a significant player,' he said

Welcome to Bizarro World, where the Xbox is a significant player, rather than being challenged in sales by the PS1 and WonderSwan!

(Disclaimer: I live in Japan, where the Xbox's popularity level is somewhere around "the whowhat?". Is the Xbox doing any better in the West?)

Selling 6,000 units (5,000 blue + 1,000 white) seems quite an ambitious goal... if they manage to do that in the space of one month, that would represent already 50% of their sales (based on the most recent figures I could find at http://m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html). Wow!

Apparently GTA3 was released in Japan in September and was still in the top ten software sales last week.