Xbox 360 outsells PS3 in Japan

INCREDIBLY, THE Xbox 360 outsold the Playstation 3 in Japan last week.

The Xbox 360 sold 17,673 fueled by Namco Bandai's Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, which debuted at the number two spot behind Super Mario Galaxy on the Nintendo Wii.

The PS3 sold only 17,434 units a slight 200 unit separation, but a significant increase over previous sales.

At least the PS3 is catching up in the development stakes - Call of Duty 4 is reported to be strikingly similar on both platforms, with Joystiq providing videos to prove the similarities.

PS3/PSP
Whilst previous rumours of an 65nm PS3 were seemingly quashed by Sony at a later date, it seems that Sony hadn't been 100 per cent truthful.

In an interview with Japanese site AV Watch, Sony Computer Entertainment President and CEO Kaz Hirai has given the final word on the new console's innards.

It seems the 40GB PS3s out there, do have 65nm CPUs - coupled with vanilla 90nm GPUs (the PS3 RSX chip).

This fully explains the reduced power consumption numbers posted by the new 40GB PS3, which left many scratching their heads once Sony dismissed earlier rumours of a die shrink.

A further denial came from Sony this week, this time concerning a reported 40 per cent failure rate.

The story was started by Dutch site Gamed, which claimed that Belgian retailer, Games Mania, stated 40 per cent of the new 40GB PS3 sold have been returned because of hardware defects. The original report has since been removed.

This week brought v2.00 of the PS3's firmware. A plethora of changes have been made, and you can see the full list courtesy of Sony, here.

Next-gen.biz has a feature on a possible comeback for the PSP. We think the PSP is a great platform, it's just a shame there's relatively few decent games for it.

Xbox 360
Whilst the PS3 is slightly under-performing against the Xbox 360 in Japan, Korea 360 sales are multitudes higher according to Microsoft.

Dae Hwan Lim, marketing coordinator for Microsoft Korea's entertainment & device division remarked that the "Xbox 360 is doing much, much better (than the PS3). There's a huge gap in market sales. I can't mention other company's numbers directly, but it's multiples larger."

1up Yours this week mentions a couple of 'hot rumors' near the end of the podcast regarding Microsoft.

Within the podcast EGM editor Shane Bettenhausen said: "I won't go into exacting detail because these rumors haven't been confirmed but they're definitely swirling around. They're probably gonna break next week. So a preview of what you may be seeing next week. A big Microsoft first-party title that has been in the works for a very long time that people are very excited for, sounds like it's being canceled. And a Microsoft executive who's pretty high up, who's been a voice for the company, sounds like he's on the way out."

It will be interesting to see if these rumours ring true later on in the week.

Wii/DS
Super Mario Galaxy sold 250k copies in its first week in Japan. We expect the title to ship into its millions - it's a class game, if you have a Wii, you need Mario Galaxy.

If you've wondered about the history of Mario, there's a full low-down available here, monitoring the rise and rise of Nintendo's favourite Italian plumber.

There's a video of the much loved Nintendo DS 1seg TV-tuner at Engadget. Again Nintendo, please bring it to the UK in Freeview form.

As usual, we finish with the Wii Virtual Console round-up by Eurogamer. µ