PSP: Eaten Alive

Now before some fanboy jumps on me for the title, allow me to include an "In Japan" first. PSP is performing quite well in the States. Currently it is almost selling as much as Nintendo in the handheld department (not bad, considering it is a three on one contest). But it is in Japan where Nintendo have really proved their dominance (one again) in the handheld gaming market.



The image above is courtesy of Aussie-Nintendo.com, and is simply a representation of the current situation in Japan. The Nintendo DS sold an impressive 3.2 million units, compared to the PSP's 1.7 million. Take into consideration that for Japan, both systems were released at around the same time. Just last week, the DS grabbed approximately 35% of the total gaming market share (home consoles included) while the PSP took around 20%.

Add in sales made by the Game Boy Advance SP, and the GB Micro, and you'll find that Nintendo are holding about 80% of the portable gaming market. On the other hand though, 20% of the market share is plenty enough for Sony to continue sales with its PSP, it is quite a healthy market share, when compared to performances made by consoles from Nintendo's past handheld competitors.

The gap between the two company's console should widen even further, when Wi-Fi is released for the DS, and long awaited titles including Mario Kart and Metroid Prime are launched.

I am interested in the sales statistics for the first month of the PSP's performance in Australia. If anyone has them that'd be great :). A prediction would be that sales made by Sony and Nintendo will be much closer in numbers than in Japan, similar to statistics from the States. Since it was the PSP's first month, I expect it to outsell the DS (this month), but should still be a little less than the DS and GBA SP combined.