Japan Charts: PSP leads hardware sales as DS stocks dwindle

Sony's PlayStation Portable has overtaken the Nintendo DS in Japan's hardware sales chart for the first time in months as Nintendo struggled to keep its handheld in stock - but DS titles continue to dominate the software charts.

The PlayStation Portable sold almost 133,000 units during the week, while the DS fell into second place with just 91,000 units sold - despite Nintendo's pledge to switch to air shipments of the DS in an effort to keep stock levels up.

In previous weeks the DS had sold 310,000, 600,000 and 390,000 units respectively, and last week Nintendo was forced to apologise publicly for the stock situation - although many industry watchers believe that the firm is keeping the channel dry deliberately to prepare for the launch of a redesigned handheld in the coming days.

Software sales for the DS continued to be impressive, however, with the recently launched More DS Training for Adults: Work Your Brain continuing the success of the brain training series by racking up a further 290,000 sales, meaning that it has now sold a total of over 700,000 units in just two weeks.

Three other DS titles also sold over 100,000 units, namely Animal Crossing: Wild World, which was the biggest-selling game in Japan last year and racked up a further 133,000 units this week, Mario Kart DS, which is now close to breaking a million unit sales, and the original DS Training For Adults: Work Your Brain.

Mario and Luigi RPG 2, which came in at number four, sold some 98,000 units - and Simple Brain Exercises, Tamagotchi Connection, and Pokemon's Mysterious Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team all also charted in the top ten for the DS.

That left only two places for other consoles in the chart, which were occupied by a solitary PS2 title, Square Enix' Kingdom Hearts II, at number six with 83,000 sales - the game is also very close to breaking the million units mark and may well do so next week - and another Nintendo title, the GBA edition of Pokemon's Mysterious Dungeon, at number ten.

For those following the fortunes of the Xbox 360 in the market, just shy of 7,500 units of the console were sold during the week, down from the 12,000 units sold in the previous week, when Dead or Alive 4 charted at number 13.