Friday is figures day, in case you hadn’t worked that one out by now. And newly-issued numbers from Media Create show that the PS3 Slim is kicking butt, taking names and totally dominating all comers in Japan.

How different things were just seven days ago, when the PlayStation 3 ‘fat’ sold a smidgen over a thousand, and even then probably by mistake. Of course Japanese gamers were just holding their breaths and keeping whatever powders they were concealing dry – in short, saving their hard-earned for the arrival of the Slim, which made its Japanese debut last weekend.

Roll forward a week and, as you’ll see below, things couldn’t be more contrast-y. Well, for the new PS3 Slim, that is – everything else has been left standing. Witness the fitness (last week’s figures in brackets):

PS3 – 151, 783 (1,040)
DSi – 68,728 (59,881)
PSP – 22,184 (26,081)
Wii – 21,557 (25,038)
Xbox 360 – 6,827 (7,254)
PS2 – 3,001 (3,179)

So let’s see if Sony can maintain this momentum over the coming weeks. We’re guessing things will quieten down a bit, then go nuts around Xmas and the release of big-time software releases. Speaking of which, the stunning success of the Slim has seen the latest PS3 chapter in the evergreen Gundam series rocket to the top of the J-software charts – the snappily-named ‘Mobile Suit Gundam Senki Record U.C.0081', with 178,000 sales. Go the Slim!