Japanese hardware sales, Dec. 15 - Dec. 21: Resolute edition

We imagine that most of you will be spending the latter part of this coming Wednesday evening performing the same annual tradition that we've upheld for as long as we can remember -- waiting for Dick Clark to slip up, finally revealing his poorly disguised true identity as a backwards-counting robot. However, this December the 31st, we urge you to observe a different year-end tradition -- one that lends itself more to self-betterment, and less to the scrutiny of octogenarian television personalities. We're speaking, of course, of New Year's resolutions.

We've actually postponed becoming better people until the end of the year, so as to include our planned self-improvements in our list of resolutions. After all, what good is drastic character reform if you can't share your lofty, altruistic goals with a captive audience? Speaking of which, our resolutions include spending the better part of 2009 building orphanages in orphan-filled countries, adopting puppies en masse from local animal shelters, and ceasing our consumption of foods made from, by or near living creatures. Aren't we just great?

Below are the next-to-last hardware sales figures for the year (they're a week behind, if you haven't deduced that already) -- it seems as though the Japanese console-purchasing populous collaborated last week to provide this particular chart with a lovely row of pixelated Christmas trees. While you soak in all the quaintness, feel free to share your own philanthropic resolutions (or your unswerving vow to remain exactly the same) in the comments section.

- DSi: 204,144 30,451 (17.53%)
- PSP: 145,957 74,417 (104.02%)
- Wii: 131,054 39,413 (43.01%)
- DS Lite: 50,308 19,188 (61.66%)
- PS3: 39,136 5,448 (16.17%)
- Xbox 360: 12,914 1,117 (9.47%)
- PS2: 8,662 2,003 (30.08%)

[Source: Media Create]

See: The philanthropic archives