The "Sold Out" DS sees its hardware sales finally fall back to earth... while its software continues to overpower the charts for the week ending January 8th.

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

OK, so perhaps the DS does have a weakness afterall: Demand. Shortly after Nintendo announced that the DS was officially "Sold Out", the results have been grisly for DS sales totals in Japan the following full week. With consistent PSP sales finally ending a 37-week run at the top, the DS has proven extremely difficult to find in many cities regardless of Nintendo's regular weekly shipments. While lamenting their inability to meet the ravenous Japaneses demand, Nintendo did also promise that supply would be bumped up towards the end of January... so don't be surprised to see low-ish sales for the next several weekly updates.

Turning an eye to the Xbox 360, Microsoft's latest again failed to draw significant interest from japanese gamers despite the second week of availability for supposed "killer-app" DOA4. Is this an alarming sign for the next-generation of consoles in particular? (Probaly not. What, I had to say it.)

Thus, the week's console numbers:

The software sales told a different tale however. With the DS again seizing 8 slots in the Top 10 (and 12 of the Top 20), japanese DS owners famished for new software continued to snap up the most popular offerings. The top 4 slots all hosted DS titles selling in the six digits, with the 5th, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, coming very close with 98k sold. Furthermore, by this time next week, two more million sellers will be added to the DS' impressive stable in Mario Kart DS and Gentle Brain Training (with the 2-week old Brain Training for Adults 2 looking to join them soon after having sold through 700k units already).

All told, Nintendo titles accounted for 15 of the Top 20...will be interesting to see how profitable the company found the holidays to be.

Weekly software numbers follow: