The DS is dethroned in Japan... by shortages. This and continued strong Wii and DS sales define the week ending January 14th.

Courtesy of Media-Create, we have the most recent sales figures from Japan.

Though overall software sales saw a steep drop-off from the week before, Nintendo's chart mastery continued. The weekly Top 30 included a combined 23 DS and Wii titles, led by Wii Sports and Dragon Quest Monsters Joker. DS milestone of the week: New Super Mario Bros. reached the quadruple platinum point, joining Pokemon Diamond/Pearl in the 4-million-sold (in Japan) club. Also a courtesy nod goes to Mario Kart DS which successfully clawed its way back into the Top 10 after months of being mired in the teens. The longevity of DS titles continues to astound. Meanwhile, outside Nintendo Land, the PSP seems to have found a champion in Solid Snake as his latest espionage title has done what few PSP titles have achieved in this market: return to the Top 10 after its first week.

In hardware, the DS Lite was deposed from its top spot for the second time in the last month and a half. As with the Wii launch week, Nintendo's "new-generation" console perched atop the rest of the hardware heap, though sales were again tempered by supply issues. In particular, not only does the Wii continue to quickly sell out of its weekly shipments, but it is likely that the DS Lite would have remained on top if not for availability issues of its own after the draining holiday sales period. Either way, Wii supply is no unique problem - all major markets are unable to fulfill surging post-holiday demand. In the US, weekly store advertisements for upcoming Wii Shipments are still met with early morning opening lines...and subsequent sell outs.

The weekly software numbers follow:

The week's console numbers follow: