PSP and 3DS sales neck and neck in Japanese charts

Sales of the 3DS and PSP have reached parity just five weeks after the release of Nintendo's new console in Japan. Although the 3DS remains the number one selling hardware of the week it does so by a margin of only a few hundred units.

3DS sales for the week ending March 27 were 50,710, down from 61,394 the previous week. PSP sales were 50,479, but combined with 600 PSPgo sales made for a total of 51,079 - exceeding overall sales for the 3DS.

The 3DS's lifetime total in Japan now stands at 792,954 - well short of the 1.5 million units Nintendo was predicting by the end of the system's first month on sale. The hardware does not appear to be supply constrained, with the PSP instead recovering from reported stock issues the previous week.

Hardware sales for other formats were largely static, with the PlayStation 3 up over 2000 units to 28,973. Wii sales rose by a similar amount to 11,808. Nintendo DS sales rose by 4,500 units to 19,094, while the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 increased by a few hundred to 1,963 and 1,862, respectively.

Much of the PSP's hardware success this week was due to the release of Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection, which saw solid debut sales of 104,173.

Results for the rest of the software chart were weak though, with Namco Bandai's Gundam the 3D Battle on 3DS the only other new release in the top ten - with just 23,500 unit sales.