3DS continues to dominate Japan as hardware sales exceed 6M

Nintendo's 3DS outsold all other consoles combined in Japan last week, and has now sold more than 6 million units in the country after launching there 14 months ago. The handheld's hardware sales of 45,752 last week is over seven times that of its chief competitor, PS Vita. Sony has struggled to build momentum for PS Vita in the midst of a software drought, and the portable's 6,347 sales just barely exceeded the previous week's record low of 6,340. PS Vita software was once again nonexistent in Japan's top 20 sales chart last week, meaning no title for the system sold more than 2,551 copies at retail (these numbers do not include software sold online via PSN). The console's next big titles, Atlus' Persona 4: The Golden and Konami's Metal Gear Solid HD Edition, aren't expected to hit until mid-to-late June. The seven-year-old PSP, however, had six titles in the top 20, including the top-selling game, Namco Bandai's oddly named My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute Portable Can't Possibly Continue, which moved 53,175 copies. Despite having the top-selling game last week -- along with decent sales performances by new games like Atlus' Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Idea Factory's Brothers Conflict: Passion Pink -- sales for the handheld dropped week-to-week from 12,247 units to 10,652 units. Wii's Mario Party 9 and the usual 3DS titles (Super Mario 3D Land, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Mario Kart 7 Monster Hunter 3G and Kid Icarus: Uprising) continue to sell well in the country. Next week's new releases include several notable games, including Nintendo's Mario Tennis Open for 3DS, Sega's Samurai & Dragons for PS Vita, and Capcom's Dragon's Dogma for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Full software and hardware sales charts for the May 14 to 20 period in Japan, provided by Media Create and translated on the NeoGAF forums, are available here.