Things are suddenly looking very bleak on the Japanese hardware front, with sales of all consoles disappearing down the toilet faster than you can say, er, toilet...

The DSi still rules the roost, as you might expect. However, sales are down by more than 20K since last week and are now just 5.5K ahead of the PSP’s. Nintendo won’t be pleased about that – doubly so since Wii sales for the week have dipped back below 20K, after a brief period of respite. Oh dear.

But then everyone is eating the sales pain. It’s very doubtful Sony execs will be writing home to mum about PS3 sales this week. Meanwhile their Xbox 360 counterparts must be fetching their coats and dipping into the office tea & biccie fund for the necessary Bus Fare Home.

Anyhoo, here are the figures for the week ending May 17th, the previous week’s sales in brackets as usual:

DSi – 34,152 (55,382)
PSP – 28,683 (43,009)
Wii – 15,116 (24,397)
PS3 – 11,605 (18,483)
DS Lite – 4,888 (7,821)
PS2 – 4,020 (5,137)
Xbox 360 – 3,233 (5,068)