No, that wasn’t a typo in the headline of this story. The PSP actually did sell more than the total combined sales of its competitors for the period of March 24-30. Why the sudden popularity of the PSP?
There’s an old adage in the game industry that software sells hardware and not the other way around. For the PSP, the software that has boosted sales through the roof is the game Monster Hunter Portable G 2nd.
For those who haven’t played the Monster Hunter titles, the gameplay revolves around catching and training monsters for battle. A simple concept, but the game has taken on a monster status, if you will, in Japan and this is what is driving the tremendous sales of the PSP because (so far) the game is exclusive and there is no DS version of the game in sight.
For all you statisticians out there, the number breakdown for game consoles sold for March 24-30 in Japan is:
PSP – 139,000
DS — 57,000
Wii — 49,000
PS3 — 13,000
Xbox 360 – 2,800
So far, the total sales for all Monster Hunter games amounts to over 6 million copies sold in Japan while in the west, the franchise has received moderate, if not weak, interest.
The DS and Wii continue their steady sales pace while the PS3 is slowly gaining ground. As usual, the Xbox 360 continues to drag the bottom of game console sales in Japan as its itinerary of games heavily favor shooters…a genre that is as popular in Japan as Monster Hunter is here in the US.
If Microsoft really hopes to capture any significant market share in Japan, they’ll have to do it with fuzzy animals and final limit spells rather than rockets and sniper rifles.
