Sony Continues To Be Nintendo’s Bitch In Japan

Since the dawn of the new year Sony fans have been constantly twittering on about how “2008 is the year of the PS3” and that the console will have “doubled its installed user base” by the year end (which isn’t that hard when you consider how poorly it performed in 2007). Sales figures from January seem to give some credence to this viewpoint, with Sony’s much-maligned console picking up some decent figures, but the latest information from Japan puts things into sharp perspective.

The Wii continues to dominate the Japanese market and is now pulling ahead, outselling the PS3 by a ratio of 4-to-1 (it outsold Sony’s console by 3-to-1 last month). According to Enterbrain, the Wii shifted an impressive 331,627 units while Sony’s machine could only manage 89,131. The 360 continues to struggle in the Land of the Rising Sun and limped in third with a disappointing 14,079.

So the next time you hear a PS3 owner bragging about how well the console is selling, make sure you have those numbers to hand.