Recent monthly sales figures now show that the Playstation3 has outsold the Wii in Japan for the first time in just under eighteen months with the PS3 achieving individual sales figures of 146,948 compared to the 99,335 units sold by Nintendo.
 
Is this a downward spiral for the Wii in Japan?
 
In my opinion no. It was recently announced that the Wii was now the fastest selling games console in history, outstripping the previous record held by Sony's Playstation2. The Wii has now clocked up unit sales of over 50 million consoles which is a staggering amount of units sold in such a relatively short space of time and amply demonstrates the appeal of the Wii across the consumer spectrum, a point alluded to by Nintendo. The family and friends orientated appeal of the Wii is something that the PS3 and Xbox360 cannot seem to compete with and with the release of the new DSi looking to set new sales records across the globe, I don't see this as anything but a market blip and nothing connected to a potential downfall for Nintendo. In fact, recent software releases are seen as the driving force behind this upturn in sales of the PS3 with Capcom's Resident Evil 5 being cited as a main reason.
 
In my opinion, this is an interesting turn of events as it demonstrates that when a game is released that piques the interest of the game purchasing public hardware sales do increase as people are eager to play these games. When the software is unique to just one or two formats, rivals will lose out and this in turn will see them seeking to develop better and groundbreaking games to enhance hardware sales. With the current global financial turmoil, this promises to be an interesting year for the video game industry.