Surface Portal - PS3 finally overtakes Wii in Japan sales

TOKYO (AFP) - Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console finally outsold Nintendo's Wii in Japan in November, helped by a price cut and a stronger line-up of games, a survey showed Friday.

Sony sold 183,217 PS3s in Japan in the four weeks to November 25, while Nintendo sold 159,193 Wii consoles, according to magazine publisher Enterbrain.

US software giant Microsoft meanwhile sold 35,065 Xbox 360s as the US software giant continued to struggle on its rivals' home turf, the survey showed.

Sony cut the price of the standard PS3 by 10 percent in October and launched a new slimmed down version, ratcheting up the competition with its rivals ahead of the crucial year-end sales period.

Nintendo has been enjoying strong demand for the Wii, which earlier this year was outselling the PS3 several times over in Japan.

The PS3's fortunes also now appear to be improving in North America where Sony recently reported a more than three-fold rise in sales in the crucial Thanksgiving holiday week.

While Sony put the emphasis on chip power and ultra-realistic graphics for the latest addition to the PlayStation series, Nintendo opted to develop a cheaper, easy-to-use console that would appeal to a wider audience.

Some analysts argue that the Wii has carved out a new market, so Nintendo and Sony are no longer competing head-to-head in home video game consoles.

They said the softer Wii sales may also be the result of supply shortages rather than weaker demand.

The success of the PS3 is considered vital to a revival at Sony, which under its first foreign boss Howard Stringer has been undergoing a major overhaul.