Wii Outselling PS3 in Japan

Nintendo's Wii continues to lead the next generation console race by outselling the PS3 by a two-to-one margin in Japan.

Enterbrain, a Japanese gaming magazine, said only 148,000 PlayStation 3’s sold during the month of January, compared to 405,000 Nintendo Wii consoles.  This coming from a region normallyconsidered as Sony’s strongest.

Sony has repeatedly maintained that shipments of the console are ramping up, saying that 1.84 million shipped worldwide before the end of 2006, even though sales numbers from analyst firms have notadded up to those numbers.  Reports claim that PS3’s have actually been sitting but customers are opting to go with the cheaper Xbox 360 and Wii consoles.

The base model PS3 sells for 49,980 yen ($416 USD) in Japan, compared to 29,800 yen ($246 USD) for the base Xbox 360 and 25,000 yen ($207 USD) for the Wii.  Enterbrain said the lower price washelping sales.

1.4 million Wii’s have sold in Japan, over double the 614,000 PS3’s sold.