Sony's six-year-old PSP may feel in need of an update, but the portable PlayStation managed to still be the bestselling platform in Japan this year, where Monster Hunter (and its clones) made 2010 great for the PSP.
That's according to a report from ASCII Media Works, publisher of Dengeki game magazines, which pegs the PSP as the number one platform in Japan for 2010. It was something of a close race, though, with the Nintendo DS in all of its flavors lagging just behind. The better news for Sony was that PSP sales were up (way up) in 2010 over 2009. The inverse was true for Nintendo, which saw big declines in DS sales year-over-year in Japan.
This is how the hardware battle went down in Japan, with 2009 sales figures in parenthesis.
- PSP - 2,729,718 (2,125,519)
- Nintendo DS - 2,719,544 (3,773,898)
- Wii - 1,592,563 (1,747,961)
- PlayStation 3 - 1,542,258 (1,668,938)
- Xbox 360 - 231,258 (349,663)
- PlayStation 2 - 83,030 (197,146)
ASCII also does its version of the top ten bestselling video games in Japan, with Pokemon Black/White (DS), Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP) and New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) taking first, second and third place respectively. It's a more accurate representation of the top ten, thanks to Monster Hunter 3rd's inclusion, than Media Create's list.
2010年で最も売れたゲームはポケモン黒・白！ [ASCII via 1UP]