The latest report from Famitsu’s research division reveals that the DS was the top-selling hardware, with 7.5 million units sold. In second place was the PSP, but sales were way behind the Nintendo system at 1.9m sales. The third best-selling console was the PS2, with 1.5m units sold.

Nintendo was the top-selling publisher in the territory, with 24.2m copies of its titles sold during 2006, followed by Square Enix (6.8m sales) and Pokemon (in Japan, Pokemon is a publisher label in its own right, as an affiliate of Nintendo) with 5.6m units.

Meanwhile, Japan’s top-selling games last year were Pokemon Diamond Pearl (4.3m units), New Super Mario Bros. (3.8m units) and Brain Training (3.7m units).

As was the case elsewhere, December was the biggest month of the year for the Japanese games market, with sales up 46.2 per cent compared to December 2005, thanks, of course to the launch of the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3 in the territory.

Wii made its debut on December 2nd and sold through 989,000 units during the month. PS3 and Xbox 360 sold 298,000 and 100,000 units respectively during the month, to bring their total sales to 467,000 and 290,000. DS notched up 1.5m units during December.