As of the end of September of this year, the Nintendo DS has sold 3.2 million units while the Sony PSP has sold just 1.7 million units in Japan, according to sales figures provided by Japanese games site Dengeki Online. The culprit? Sony's just not coming out with games that Japanese gamers want to buy. The PSP's game lineup is a source of major dissatisfaction for Japanese gamers, with just 15.3 percent of them satisfied about the games available for the system. Compare that to nearly 50% of DS owners who are happy with the games available for the DS.
This isn't a shocker. We've been hearing from reader comments for a while now that the PSP's line-up is somewhat lackluster. The top-ranked PSP game to date is launch title Lumines, and that's kind of puzzling, considering how well Sony has done lining up developer support for the PlayStation consoles.
Maybe this is only a short-term problem. There are currently around 50 PSP games available, and Sony has promised that nearly 150 will be available by Spring 2006, but we still have to wonder whether Sony might have taken on more than it can handle in trying to launch the PS3 and support a brand new mobile console at the same time.
But as we all know, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Another way to look at these same figures is in terms of gross sales. At twice the price of a DS, the PSP only needs to sell half as many units to match gross sales. That's not too shabby for Sony's first-ever game console portable.
[Thanks, Christopher7xii]
