The first results are out in the hotly contested market for video game consoles in Japan, and so far, the results do not look too promising for Sony and its much-promoted PlayStation 3.
Enterbrain, a market research company, released sales estimates showing that Sony fell far short of its goal of selling 1 million PlayStation 3s in Japan last year. Sony sold 534,336 consoles from their Nov. 11 debut in Japan to Jan. 7, Enterbrain said.
By contrast, Enterbrain reported that Nintendo sold 1.14 million units of its less expensive new game console, Wii, from its introduction Dec. 2 until Jan. 7. Xbox 360 from Microsoft, which has had limited success breaking into the Japanese market, has sold 311,053 units since arriving in December 2005, Enterbrain said.
"We can't keep Wiis in our stores," said Naoko Ito, a spokeswoman for Bic Camera, one of Japan's largest electronics retailers. "But we still have plenty of PlayStations." Analysts said these figures offer some of the first hard data on how PlayStation 3, which was introduced here a week before it was in the U.S. was faring.