Xbox 360 fails to take off in Japan as DS dominates

The Nintendo DS is continuing to prove hugely popular with Japanese consumers, accounting for more than 70 per cent of sales - while the Xbox 360 is struggling to break the 1 per cent barrier.

According to data provider Media Create, 138,000 Nintendo DS units and 690,000 DS Lites were sold during the month of April - accounting for 12.01 per cent and 60.19 per cent of sales respectively. Total DS sales rose by 206 per cent compared to figures for April 2005, which can be at least partly attributed to the launch of the DS Lite on March 2nd.

The PSP was the next best-selling piece of hardware last month, with just over 130,000 units sold and an 11.34 per cent share of the market. The PS2 is still going strong for a console at the end of its life cycle - 112,000 units were sold, making for a 9.77 per cent market share.

In fact, the PS2 far outsold Microsoft's next-gen console, which launched in Japan last December. The Xbox 360 is also trailing behind the GBA SP and the Game Boy Micro (both of which have market shares of around 2.6 per cent) - 10,701 units were sold in April, accounting for just 0.93 per cent of hardware sales.

The original Xbox, which has never been able to secure a foothold in Japan, is also continuing to fair poorly. It lagged behind the GameCube (0.4 per cent) and GBA (0.02 per cent) with just 121 units sold last month and a 0.01 per cent market share.

As for software sales, Konami topped the charts with Winning Eleven 10 for PS2 (460,500 copies sold), followed by DS title Animal Crossing: Wild World (317,000). Other DS games appearing in the top ten include Brain Training, Tetris and Pokîmon Ranger, but GBA game Mother 3 was the third best-selling game of the month.