Weekly Japanese console chart: PlayStation 2 alone shows growth

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Consoles of almost all shapes and sizes experienced a drop-off in Japanese sales between March 29 and April 4 after the previous week's school holiday surge, save for the venerable PlayStation 2, which remained steady at around 1,800 units sold.

The PlayStation 2 also managed to penetrate the top 10 of Japanese software sales, as 21,002 copies of Pro Baseball Spirits 2010, a baseball sports sim, were snapped up.

The game was also available (and two to three times as popular) on the PlayStation 3 and Sony's handheld PSP, but for console-lacking baseball fans in desperate need of a fix, the PS2 is the cheaper of the three, retailing close to 14,000 Yen, as compared to the standard PSP's price nearer to Y16,000, and the more powerful PS3 doubling that at Y33,000.

Nintendo's DS is now only 45,000 units and a week or two away from having sold a monstrous 30 million in Japan. That's creeping ever closer to one DS for every four members of the 127 million Japanese population.

With few notable releases on the platform until Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 and Hitman Reborn! Fate of Heat III at the end of April, it will be interesting to see how the handheld fares over the next few weeks without the support of those eye-catching titles.

Nintendo DS: 41,219
PlayStation 3: 39,260
Sony PSP: 38,877
Nintendo Wii: 30,938
Xbox 360: 2,676
PlayStation 2: 1,815

Sony PSP sales breakdown
PSP: 37,445
PSP go: 1,803

Nintendo DS sales breakdown
DSi LL (aka XL): 21,583
DSi: 15,526
DS Lite: 4,110

Source: Media Create