Wow. I didn’t anticipate this ever happening, especially after Sony can’t seem to keep their pants above their collective waist since the PS2 started to peter out. It looked clearly like Nintendo had finally taken back its mantle, but numbers from Japan this week state otherwise. According to PC World, here are those numbers: 95,487 for the Sony PSP, 79,974  units for the Nintendo DS, 26,181 for the Nintendo Wii, 13,128 for the venerable PlayStation 2, 13,101 for the overpriced PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360 cleaning up with a mere 1,243.

Apparently we can chalk all of this PS mania up to one source, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII [in Japanese, US version expected in Spring '08]. This isn’t altogether surprising, but I’m a little shocked that it was enough to put the PSP in the lead over the DS, which itself enjoys a considerable lead over its more capable older brother, the Wii. My only question is will it be enough to maintain a lead? I doubt it. Sony has only been able to manage a very poor showing for the PSP, and the only reason CCFF7 is a hot seller is because Final Fantasy VII was the most popular iteration of the long running franchise.

written by Tyler Regas