Japanese game market drops 0.6% - software up, hardware down
Today marks the end of the fiscal year for the Japanese gaming market, and according to figures complied by Famitsu, overall sales are down slightly at 0.6 percent.
Software sales were up, which helped keep the downturn minimal; however, hardware sales didn't fare as well.
According Enterbrain's market data report, between March 30, 2009 and March 28, 2010, industry sales reached 549,060 million yen, compared to 2008's 552,420 million.
Hardware sales came in at 216,180 million yen, which is a 6.6 percent drop from 2008's 231,520 million.
Software totaled 332,880 million yen, which is up 3.7 percent from last year's 320,900 million.
DS, DS Lite, DSi, and DSi LL hardware topped the system charts with a combined 3,922,762 units, bringing LTD totals to the 30 million mark.
PSP and PSPgo came in second for the year with a combined 2,422,765 units.
Here's the hardware sales chart with LTDs:
- DS: 3,922,762 (30,075,728)
- PSP: 2,422,765 (14,227,354)
- Wii: 2,183,938 (10,137,092)
- PS3: 1,925,429 (4,934,824)
- X360: 251,911 (1,253,102)
On the software front, DS claimed three spots, with Wii and PS3 rounding out the remainder of the top five:
- Dragon Quest IX - DS: 4,150,667
- Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver- DS: 3,663,655
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii : 3,587,755
- Friend Collection - DS: 3,085,838
- Final Fantasy XIII - PS3: 1,881,972
Thanks, Andriasang.