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Tokyo - Nintendo's Wii outsold rival Sony's PlayStation 3 three-fold in Japan last year, helping the country's multi-billion dollar video game market to notch up its best ever year, a survey showed on Monday.
Nintendo sold about 3.63 million Wii consoles in its home market in 2007 while Sony sold 1.21 million PS3s, according to magazine publisher Enterbrain.
The Wii also trounced the PS3 more than three-fold in the key year-end sales period between November 25 and December 30, selling 774 123 Wii consoles against Sony's sales of 232 421 PS3s, the survey showed.
Nintendo won back its lead after the two rivals briefly traded places in November, when the PS3 outsold the Wii in Japan for the first time, helped by a price cut and a stronger line-up of games, according to Enterbrain.
Sony's game unit said on Monday that it had sold 1.2 million PS3s in North America during the holiday shopping period after a hefty price cut.
"The PlayStation brand ended the year in a very strong position and clearly indicates more positive momentum going into 2008," Jack Tretton, head of Sony Computer Entertainment in the US, said in a statement.
Analysts said that although PS3 sales appear to be improving after a tough first year, in terms of sales it is still far behind the Wii.
"Consumers both in Japan and overseas are still attracted by the Wii, which remains a fresh concept," said Hiroshi Kamide, a game analyst at KBC Securities.
The Wii also retains a three-fold sales advantage over the PS3 in North America, where Microsoft's Xbox 360 is also posing competition for Sony, he said.
Sony "either has to slash the price further or increase the number of games available, which is something software makers are reluctant to do" because there are too few owners in the US to make it worthwhile, he added.
Microsoft sold 257 841 Xbox 360s last year in Japan, continuing to struggle on its rivals' home turf two years after the console's launch, the survey showed.
Japan's total computer game market was worth a record ¥687.7bn ($6.37bn) in 2007, up 9.9% from the previous year, Enterbrain said.
The market was buoyed by robust sales of Nintendo's DS and the Lite version handheld consoles, which have sold a total of just over 21 million units since the initial launch three years ago, it added.
Software sales were also strong, with games for Nintendo consoles making up four of the five top-selling games, the survey showed.
- Dow Jones