Nintendo sales down in Japan

Sales of Nintendo hardware have fallen in Japan, where the DS handheld has shifted fewer than 100,000 units for the first time this year, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Despite the drop in sales, the DS still leads the market with 94,339 consoles sold for the week ended September 2. Nintendo's Wii sold 39,371 for the same period, according to recent data from Media Create.

Sony's PlayStation 3 was the only console in the region to record improved sales, with 18,068 consoles sold - in the same week that Koei's PS3 title Bladestorm entered the all-formats charts at number two by selling 58,996 copies.

Sales of the PlayStation Portable fell to 22,196, compared to 26,089 the previous week, while the PS2 sold 14,280 units, down from 15,139 the week before.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold just 1635 units, while the GBA sold 474 and the GameCube 73 units in the region.

As well as Bladestorm, there were two other new entries in the Japanese software charts last week. Bandai Namco's One Piece: Gear Spirit for the Wii sold 41,207 copies and entered the charts at number 5, while Banpresto's DS game Summonight: Twin Age took the number seven spot with 27,692 sales.

The full Japanese software top ten follows:

• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
• Bladestorm
• Gintama: Together with Gin-san! My Kabuki-cho Diary
• Sengoku Musou 2: Moushouden
• One Piece: Gear Spirit
• Mario Party 8
• Summonight: Twin Age
• Phoenix Wright 3
• My Housekeeping Diary
• Wii Play