Sony’s fortunes in Japan continue an enthusiastic upturn as PSP nearly outsells Nintendo DS and Wii combined.

A very good week for Sony, what with PS3 marching ahead of Xbox 360 in Europe and the further adventures of PSP in Japan. Bragging rights on the home turf could be the catalyst for a sea change in market share. Sony might even be tempted to cite Nintendo as its ‘closest competitor’ for a change instead of wimping out and pretending it’s Microsoft. Anyway, PSP shifted 100,870 units over there last week, with Wii trailing at 71,518 and DS Lite managing ‘just’ 52,542.

Software sales are a different story, and apart from “Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G”, the driving force behind PSP sales, there are no more PSP games in the Top 10. In fact only three in the Top 40!

Mario Kart for Wii is in pole. Second place is Monster Hunter, but behind that there’s Link’s Crossbow Training, Wii Fit, Deca Sports and Wii Sports all for Wii (in case you hadn't worked that one out) mingled between other top selling DS games such as Pokemon Ranger eating up the remaining places.

Clearly PSP is a goldmine waiting to be discovered for game developers, but with such a high chance of failure it’s little wonder that even the biggest publishers continue to err on the side of caution. Nintendo formats continue to dominate overall. Hiroshi Yamauchi isn’t the richest guy in Japan for nothing! (See yesterday’s news).