Ben-DutkaHey, it's a step in the right direction. If you've been following the Japanese hardware sales charts in 2007, you've realized that Nintendo has remained the perennial king with both the Wii and DS. But Sony is happy to report that their PSP has experienced a fairly drastic upswing over the last three weeks, which is good news for just about everyone.
According to the most recent issue of Famitsu, the PSP has vaulted over the DS – amazingly enough – into the top slot, thanks to that new slimmer, lighter version that released on September 20. In that span of time, Sony moved 580,000 of those little electronic wonders, and the launch of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII certainly helped a great deal. They sold 77,777 (lucky 7s!) of the limited edition PSP bundle packs, which means a whole lot of Japanese gamers were finally coerced into a purchase thanks to the new PSP model and the super popular Crisis Core .
That PSP Slim, first revealed at this year's E3, is now available in Japan in six different colors, and retails for 19,800 yen. It's 33% lighter and 19% slimmer, and those significant numbers have clearly translated to even more significant financial numbers for Sony. Could this be the one surge the PSP needed to successfully compete with the DS?