PSP sells more than double the units of Wii in Japan

To say April was a good month for PSP hardware sales in Japan would be an understatement. Sony's console has been steadfastly sitting at the top of the hardware charts over there for weeks now, with little indication it'll be dropping down in position any time soon.

But this success has been put further into perspective with the news - reported by trade site MCV - that the console sold more than double the units of Nintendo's Wii during the month of April.

In the same month Mario Kart Wii hit shop shelves and instantly topped the software charts, PSP was still outselling the console by 2:1. In total, the handheld sold a massive 380,697 units during April, while Wii sold 187,121 and DS 169,911.

Sony has obviously had just a tiny bit of help achieving these sales figures with the release of Capcom's Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G, which seems to be driving Japanese gamers into a frenzy and has sold a whopping 2 million copies since its release around six weeks ago.

However it's achieved the sales figures though, the result is a console with a fast-increasing user base that publishers - especially in Japan - can hardly overlook. Whether PSP can achieve the same levels of success in the west over the coming months remains to be seen, but outselling Nintendo in the month a new Mario Kart game is released is certainly a promising start.