If there’s been one complaint my contacts inside large CE companies have had, career-wise, it’s been the inability to rise far in the hierarchy. While there are clear exceptions to this rule, the complaint has always been that succeeding in Asian companies has been contingent on (literally) speaking the language and knowing the rules of the road, as it were, culturally.

When Sir Howard Stringer took the reins at Sony, it looked like this tendency had been bucked. However, with the appointment of Kazuo Hirai, it looks like Sony is going back to the old ways – but why?

First, Stringer’s note “passing the brandy snifter,” as it were:

Sony is no longer in the position they were in when Stringer became CEO. In June 2005, when he was appointed after a long career in Sony’s media divisions, Stringer looked like they guy to lead Sony through the rocky shoals of media distribution. You’ll remember that the iTunes store started selling music two years earlier and streaming video was still a few years off. The way ahead was clear – Blu Ray would carry HD content into homes and streaming would always be the second best solution. HD piracy was difficult because of the huge file sizes and the best solution for digital distribution was to include a nice DRM-ed video file in with the DVD, complete with a with a special Sony player. It was a simpler time and it looked like Stringer could make content work while Japanese engineers could make the TVs and Walkmen work.

Today Howard’s world is completely changed. Sony is no longer the darling of the computing world (Apple owns that limelight) nor is it good at CE (Samsung and Vizio have shown that cheap TVs don’t have to suck) nor can it make phones. Blu Ray is fast becoming irrelevant and distribution channels have curved around Sony like light around a dying star. Stringer’s Sony is a shambles.

So Sony went back to a Japanese CEO who ran the company’s most prosperous product, Playstation. It makes perfect sense: the next decade isn’t solely about hardware or content or mobile – it’s about all of those and more. Gaming consoles take the best of those three worlds and actually sell products to people who want to pay for them. Gaming is a huge business and it’s the one place that Sony can excel in this century.

In the end, Stringer was a CEO for a Sony that wanted to appear more plugged into Hollywood, media, and content. Now Sony needs to look like it cares about gaming and the capital of Sony’s gaming empire is Japan. It was fun to try new things, Sony is saying, but when it comes to turnaround they’ve come back to basics.

You can’t believe everything you read, nor can you trust everything you hear on TV. Especially if it sounds something like “four out of five people choose LG Cinema 3D over Sony and Samsung for overall 3D experience.”

Apparently the Better Business Bureau (more specifically the National Advertising Division) “has recommended that LG Electronics USA discontinue advertising claims made for the company’s Cinema 3D Television and 3D glasses.”

Back in June of 2011, LG sent out a press release claiming that four out of five customers prefer LG Cinema 3D television over Sony and Samsung in a number of different categories including brightness, color, picture quality, glasses, and overall 3D experience. The research was done by a company called Morpace Inc., who tested the TVs at their default settings without any branding shown.

Shortly thereafter, LG came out with an ad calling out Sony and Samsung directly, telling them to “stick to 2D”, which ran in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times (Online).

LG has come to market focusing primarily on passive 3D technology, whereas Sony and Samsung have opted to focus more on active 3D offerings. Passive technology allows for cheaper, lighter glasses much like the ones you’d use in a movie theater, and active 3D requires battery-powered electronic glasses to view 3D content. Still, all three companies have a number of different models across a variety of sizes. The test, on the other hand, was conducted using only entry-level models from each company.

That said, the NAD asserts that LG’s “broad line claims are premised upon a single test of the parties’ entry-level model 3D televisions” and have found the consumer-perception evidence to be materially flawed. The NAD recommends that LG discontinue claims that “four out of five” consumers prefer LG’s passive 3D over Sony and Samsung.

In the market for a new point and shoot? Didn’t think so. Why don’t you take a gander at the new Sony shooters anyway?

You’ve basically got two models worth looking at. First is the rather expensive TX200V:

It’s expensive for a reason, though. They’ve made it look as much like an iPhone as possible, flat glass on both sides. Unlike the iPhone, however, this thing is waterproof down to 5m. It’s got a 5x non-protruding zoom, for which they provide no F numbers, so it can’t be very fast — though the camera’s back-illuminated 18-megapixel sensor makes up for that a bit. It’ll shoot 1080/60p of a sort.

On the back is a 3.3″ OLED touchscreen of the “Xtra Fine™” variety, which I presume is a higher resolution than the previous 3.3″ OLED they put on a camera. Should be nice, high contrast, and decent resolution. There are no buttons on the thing except power, shutter, and a zoom rocker. Looks like a fun little camera, though for my money I’d want something with a brighter, bigger lens. This thing will set you back

Next you have the WX70 and the WX50:

They share the same internals, but are different on the outside. The WX50 has normal controls: switches and dials and all that, and a 2.7″ normal LCD. The WX70 is like the TX200V, all touchscreen on the back, and with just power, zoom, and shutter controls on the top. The screen is 640×480 and 3″, which should be nice and sharp.

The lens for both is a 5x zoom, F/2.6-6.3. Nothing special, but F/2.6 isn’t bad for a compact wide-angle. Inside they both have the same 16-megapixel back-illuminated sensor, which will shoot 1080/60i, though if it has a progressive mode (the press release doesn’t say) I’d recommend that. Anyone shooting interlaced in 2012 should have their camera confiscated. I wish somebody would tell Sony that.

The WX50 will cost around $200, and the WX70 will be $30 more. If the touchscreen works well (can’t tell until there’s a hands-on), the extra $30 will be well-spent.

So which is the best? Obviously the expensive, waterproof one, though for $500 you can get a better camera these days as far as lens and sensor are concerned. And you can get waterproof ones for under $150. Hell, I got a waterproof smartphone for $80 on Craigslist. So although it’s nice, it doesn’t strike me as a bargain.

Meanwhile, the WX70 is pretty fancy for $230, and with the BSI sensor and F/2.6 you should be able to get most shots without bumping the ISO too high. I’d go with that over the more traditional WX50 and the nice but expensive TX200V. And there you have it!

More news on the Sony-Olympus alliance that’s supposed to be announced soon: Japan’s biggest business daily The Nikkei is reporting today that big S is interested in purchasing a stake as large as “20%-30%” in its potential, scandal-hit partner (that would be up from the 0.03% Sony currently owns).

The capital and business alliance would be mainly aimed at bringing together Sony’s strength in imaging sensor technology with Olympus’ expertise in endoscopes and other medical equipment.

According to the Nikkei, Sony plans to expand investments in the health care field, as the company has been reporting weak financial numbers for their core consumer electronics business for quite a while now.

The paper also says it learned that Fujifilm and medical equipment maker Terumo are two other companies interested in Olympus.

On January 18, Olympus said it will hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting in April. During the announcement, the company also said it will sell a part of its shares to a strategic partner to help get it out of its crisis – it looks more and more like that partner will be Sony.

Sony has announced a new line of image sensors that will, in all likelihood, end up in dozens of smartphone models. The improvement is not in megapixels, which have more or less hit a ceiling, but in the actual layout of the light-sensitive wells that make up the pixels in the image.

The new sensors have, in addition to the usual red, green, and blue-filtered pixels, an unfiltered pixel element as well that will accept any wavelength of light. It can’t be used to determine color, but it will add (they say) to both sensitivity and brightness. Essentially what they’re doing is including a hard luminance-detecting element. This is good, much more accurate than taking the average from the RGB elements, and should in fact make low-light photography significantly better.

The press release shows off an improved low-light shot (seen above) and a video where an “HDR” function is used to reduce blowouts and even out exposure. By decoupling the color from the luminance measurements, more latitude is given to the image processor to create an image within clipping boundaries.

The idea isn’t new; in fact, LCDs already exist that use the image-producing (as opposed to capturing) variant of this. Sharp’s “Quattron” TVs have a fourth, yellow pixel that adds to both brightness and warmth. It’s different, of course, but the principle is similar.

And interestingly, Sony isn’t the first to do this, or at least they are not the first to attempt it: Kodak, the poor dears, were granted a patent for this very thing in 2007. It’s very likely that Sony developed this independently, but may have had to license the technology from Kodak in order to actually sell this type of sensor. Given how aggressively Kodak has been pushing its patents in the last year, the timing seems unlikely to be a coincidence — but it is not stated one way or the other. Sony says, however, that the technology was unfeasible until they designed this new chip around it, which reduces the area needed for a photosite and presumably enables higher pixel density.

Don’t expect any devices to ship with these new RGBW sensors for a while: the first 13-megapixel sensors will be shipping in June, and 8-megapixel ones in August. So phones and cameras using this technology likely won’t be appearing until the end of 2012. Something to look forward to.

It would be a tie-up between two giants: Diamond Weekly, a major Japanese business journal, is reporting [JP] on its website today that scandal-hit Olympus is about to ink a capital and business alliance deal with Sony. Olympus has been under fire for months, after it was revealed the company has covered up large losses for the past 20 years.

At some point, Olympus was in danger of getting de-listed at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, but it’s now on a 3-year “probation” that requires the company to improve governance. According to Diamond, Olympus’ top management has been consulting with various electronics companies but chose Sony as the best partner to help get it out of one the biggest corporate scandals in Japanese history.

The magazine says that Olympus is planning to hold a news conference as early this week to formally announce the deal. As a next step, the alliance is to get a green light at an extraordinary shareholders meeting in April.

Sony currently owns a 0.03% stake in Olympus. Neither company has reacted to Diamond’s report yet.

Smartphone maker Sony Ericsson this morning posted a pre-tax loss of 247 million euros ($318 million) in the fourth quarter of 2011, after reporting a profit of 31 million euros in Q3 2011. The company, a 50:50 joint-venture between Sony and Ericsson, blames “intense competition”, “price erosion” and effects from the flooding in Thailand as some of the main drivers for the drop.

Sales for the quarter were approximately 1.3 billion euros, down 16 percent year-on-year.

The fourth quarter of last year ended in a net loss of 207 million euros ($266.5 million), compared to a net income of 8 million euros ($10.3 million) in the same quarter of the previous year.

Analysts were actually expecting a modest profit from the company, so this is quite a shock.

Sony will soon acquire Ericsson’s 50 percent share of Sony Ericsson in a deal valued at 1.05 billion euros – the transaction is expected to take place “late January to February 2012″.

Sony Ericsson’s huge loss in Q4 2011 will impact Ericsson’s operating income with SEK -1.1 b. (125 million euros) in the quarter, the latter company said this morning.

Update with more information from Sony Ericsson’s earnings report:

Its gross margin for the quarter was 24 percent, a decrease of 6 points year-on-year and 3 percentage points from the previous quarter.

The company shipped 9 million units during Q4 2011, a 20 percent decrease year-on-year and a 5 percent decrease compared to Q3. Sony Ericsson has shipped 28 million Xperia (Android) smartphones to date.

Even though Sony Ericsson intends to go all-smartphone during 2012, feature phones still make up some 20 percent of its sales volumes.

Also read:

Sony Ericsson To Rebrand In 2012, Aims For Top Of The Android Pack

Sony Ericsson CEO: We Should Have Taken The iPhone More Seriously

The Playstation Vita handheld system, unveiled at E3 last year, went on sale just before the holidays in Japan. It saw serious sales: around 325,000 units (500,000 by Sony’s reckoning) were sold in its opening week. Naturally numbers tend to drop after the initial rush, and the next week saw healthy sales of around 72,000. But The numbers kept decreasing, and it is now reported that for the week ending January 15, the new device sold only 18,361 units, not including online sales. That’s less than the PSP.

Other games systems like the 3DS and Wii also saw big drops in the post-holiday season, but for a brand new system like the Vita to drop to sub-20,000 numbers so quickly isn’t a good sign.

Could it be a lack of quality games, something that hamstrung the 3DS’s early days? Or perhaps people are waiting on the inevitable bundles when the device makes its debut in the US with high-profile titles like Uncharted?

Whatever the case is, it’s still too early to be calling the Vita a loser. The fact is it has a lot going for it, and it’s a long play by Sony, not a cash-in. The PS3 was slow to take off, and is now intermittently leading console sales. In two years, will the Vita be topping the 3DS? Or will it have the same fate as the PSP, simply not recognized as a mainstream gaming machine? I hope that’s not the case, because the Vita has more potential than the 3DS to be a mainstream gaming device.

February 22nd is the date to look forward to. It may be that the US launch will reinvigorate the flagging handheld, but really it won’t be until later in the year when buying habits have returned to normal that we can draw any conclusions.

Sometimes you just need a file transferred onto a flash drive quickly. Enter The Sony MicroVault Mach. These boys are fast. Some would say SuperSpeed fast.

These metal flash drives use the latest USB spec to achieve up to 60MB/s read speeds. The USB 3.0 drives are of course backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports. The drives use Sony’s tried-and-true “Click and Plug” mechanism that hides the USB connector within the body when the drive is not in use.

Sony has yet to release pricing information on the MicroVault Mach line although they’re supposed to start shipping later this month. Look for them in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB sizes when they eventually hit stores.

Apple users probably have more than enough media on their iDevices to keep them entertained on the go, but Sony Network Entertainment President Tim Schaaff thinks there’s room for another media service on iOS. According to VentureBeat, the company’s Music Unlimited streaming service will be hitting Apple’s mobile platform some time in Q1 2012.

In addition to simply streaming music from the Music Unlimited catalog, users will be able save cache their playlists for offline streaming at a later time. The service is already available on Android devices (not to mention several of Sony’s own products) so it’s more than a little surprising that it will soon make the iOS leap.

It’s especially puzzling because there is already no shortage of competitors in the streaming music space. As VentureBeat notes, rivals Spotify and Rdio have been on iOS for quite some time now, and already offer a similar feature set.

Really, it’s problem that all new entrants to this space have to deal with. As Eric Schmidt would probably say, it all comes down to differentiation. Rara, a relatively new streaming music service that launched this past December, is a great example. While they peg their service as being tuned for the non-tech savvy, their other main differentiator was that they launched simultaneously in multiple markets worldwide where some of the bigger services have yet to make a splash. While it’s still early to say if the approach is actually sustainable, I’ve got to give them credit for taking a different approach.

In this case, Sony’s appearance on iOS probably holds considerable appeal for people who have already invested heavily into the Sony media/hardware ecosystem, but it’s going to be a tough sell for anyone who doesn’t have some sort of pre-existing allegiance to the Japanese giant. I wish them the best — more competition is always good — but I look forward to seeing how many iOS users adopt it.

Sony Computer Entertainment reported some solid sales numbers for its various PlayStation systems for the past holiday season today. Sony says that they moved a total of 6.5 million PlayStation 2/3/PSP/Vita units worldwide (Sony defines “holiday season” as between November 21 and January 5 in Asia, November 21 through December 31 in America, and November 18 through December 31 in Europe).

To be more specific, the company sold:

• 500,000 units of the PlayStation Vita (which launched in Japan on December 7 and in Hong Kong and Taiwan on December 23)
• 3.9+ million PS3s (Sony says the system is on track to sell 15 million units in the fiscal year through March 31)
• 1.6 million PSPs (all models combined)
• 500,000 PS2 systems
• 1.7 PlayStation Moves (not part of the 6.5 million total)

Sony also said that Vita owners can choose between 24 different games at the moment and that 70 additional titles are currently in development. The company’s newest video game system will hit Europe, Australia, and America on February 22, 2012.

Today at Sony’s CES 2012 press conference, the company unveiled several PC concepts that are, well, just concepts. Kazuo Hirai took to the massive Sony stage deep within the Las Vegas Convention center and talked about the convergence of TV and computers. But no one cares about that marketing nonsense. It was the concepts they flashed on the screen that got everyone excited.

But don’t expect these products to hit the market. Companies are not supposed to sell concepts. They’re concepts, not products.

Up until the last decade, Sony was the design leader in consumer electronics. Sure, others had hits, but no one had decades of iconic products like Sony. Then, for whatever reason, Sony seemed to lose it soul. It lost the magic that made generations of consumers fall in love with the brand. It’s sad, really.

Companies seem afraid to show concepts now-in-days. Perhaps they’re frightened of the potential criticism. MG would no doubt crucify some of them. But these companies also lose out on the conversations and hype that they can generate. Concepts are supposed to invoke an emotional response — good or bad. You’re supposed to love it or hate it. Concepts are supposed to show where the brand is headed.

Think about concept cars: They’re a physical roadmap produced when designers are allowed to go wild. Teenage boys dream about these cars. Posters are made. They are the heart of the automotive world and can often reignite a dead brand.

Several concept gadgets made it to the market. The original Dell XPS is a fine example. The limited-run notebook was loved by many and it was Dell’s halo product for several quarters. But because it wasn’t a blockbuster, runaway success, it was quietly killed. Instead, Dell should have had a clear message that this was going to be a limited product, designed simply for Dell’s fans and those looking for a unique product.

The gadget world is stuck in a cycle of regurgitation and repetition. A random company produces a concept, Apple prefects it, which is then copied by nearly every other company. Concepts are a lost art. Sony is in a desperate need of finding its soul again. Sony needs concepts.

HP has upped the ultrabook ante with a glass-backed HP laptop that looks a bit like a MacBook and a lot like the future of HP trade dress. The HD screen displays 1600×900 pixels and includes HDMI out, Ethernet, USB 3.0, and mini Displayport ports.

The glass on the back of the laptop is Gorilla Glass, which means it probably won’t break if you drop it. It includes a fat 128GB SSD drive for $1,400 and an optional 256GB upgrade. It runs a Core i5 or i7 processor and ships in February.

HP has been using this design quite a bit lately, which suggests they’ve gone all in when it comes to high-design ultrabooks. This one is a very special case – the glass back is more gimmick than anything else – but it will be interesting to see how HP is able to sell this to fleet buyers.

Now that most of our smartphones can take crisp images and stunning video, the digital imaging sector is having a tough time holding on to its market share. Still, a few players are up for the challenge, including Sony which has today announced the latest in its line of Bloggie pocket cams: Bloggie Live and Bloggie Sport.

Bloggie Live is all about what’s happening right now, as it’s able to shoot video and broadcast it live to another device courtesy of the Qik platform. All videos taken with Bloggie Live are in 1080p, and are uploaded in the mp4 format so you can share quickly to Facebook and YouTube. Speaking of, Bloggie Live has built-in WiFi so whenever you’re connected to a network, you’ll be able to share directly to your favorite platforms without plugging anything in. On the still images front, Bloggie Live still has your smartphone beat with a 12.8 megapixel sensor.

Bloggie Live sports a 3-inch touchscreen, along with a flip-out USB arm for charging/uploading, 8GB of memory, and an HDMI-out port. Sony’s also loaded this little guy up with some software including its PlayMemories online platform, which lets you view pictures and videos from your iOS or Android devices once you’ve downloaded the PlayMemories mobile app.

Then there’s the Bloggie Sport, Bloggie Live’s ruggedized little brother. It still shoots in 1080p and has a 4x digital zoom like the premium model, but Sony opted to offer this guy with 4GB of memory instead of 8GB, bringing its video shooting time down to two hours instead of three. Still images will be 5MP instead of 12MP, and the LCD touchscreen has been reduced from 3-inches to 2.7.

However, there is some added functionality there, including the ability to take this thing 16 feet under water (with full touchscreen control). Bloggie Sport is also shock resistant. It’s got a rubberized finish, and has special locks to prevent any seepage on that flip-out USB arm. Like the Bloggie Live, you’ll also find an LED light on the back to help with low-light shots.

Bloggie Live will hit shelves today and has an MSRP of $249, while the Bloggie Sport won’t be available until mid- to late February for $179.

Sony’s really looking to give their Walkman line of mp3 players a shot in the arm with their newest addition to the lineup. Dubbed the Walkman Z1000, it’s Sony’s first Android-powered music player and it’s gunning to give Apple and Samsung a run for their money.

The Z1000 originally debuted in Japan this past September, but Sony’s execs have apparently deigned it nifty enough to transplant to the U.S. market. With its 4.3-inch display, it’s a fair bit larger than an iPod Touch or the original Samsung Galaxy Player but it makes up for the added size with some extra functionality.

On top of the usual features like the ability to download apps from the Android Market, the Z1000 series features DLNA support so users can sling media onto their compatible TVs. It also sports a microHDMI port if the television in question isn’t quite up to snuff, and Sony’s S-Master MX amplifier, which should come in handy when it comes to pumping out the jams.

The new Walkman also sports an interesting design, if I may say so. It’s hard to tell from the press image, but there are two humps that bound the top and bottom of the Walkman’s rear. Whether or not you’ll dig how it feels jammed into your pocket is something else entirely, but one thing’s for sure — you’d be hard-pressed to mistake it for one of its rivals.

Hopefully Sony has learned their lesson from devices like the PRS-T1 ereader, a remarkably handsome device that was plagued by a sadly chintzy feel.

If the thought of a Gingerbread-powered Walkman has you just plain tickled, you won’t have to wait too long to snag one — units are expected to hit shelves in spring 2012. Expect to see 8, 16, and 32GB variants retailing for $249, $279, and $329 respectively.

Not content to pull back the curtains on just one handset today, news of Sony’s new Xperia S handset has started to make round ahead of Sony’s big Las Vegas press conference.

Gone is the “Ericsson” moniker, but the Sony handset is nothing to sneeze at. The Xperia S packs a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor (what is it with 1.5GHz processors today?), a 12-megapixel camera capable of recording in 1080p, and an NFC chip. It’s slated to be available in both black and silver when it launches, and while I’m a fan of bright orange, I imagine most people won’t have an issue with the color scheme.

Sadly, for a phone that’s supposedly launching in Q1 2012, it only runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, though we know Sony is already working on Ice Cream Sandwich updates for most of their more modern handsets.

The gamers among you will be interested to know that the Xperia S is also PlayStation-certified, so it’s fully compatible with the PlayStation Suite and all of the nifty games that it affords access to. Users will have to be pretty judicious with which games they install though — it will only come with 16 or 32 GB of storage depending on the model they choose.

You wish you were here.

You pretend that you don’t want to be here because, granted, we’ve been on our feet since the crack of dawn, have been fighting MiFi and WiFi connections like we’re getting paid for it, and haven’t eaten the best food thus far. But none of those tedious little annoyances matter in a moment like this: Sony’s press conference is just seconds away. It kicks off at 5:00pm PST and should last an hour. Tune in. Sony knows how to put on a show.

Big news from Sony today: according to a report just published by Japanese business daily The Nikkei, Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai, currently the company’s Executive Deputy President, will become president as early as April this year. Hirai doubles as the Chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment.

The move doesn’t really come as a big surprise: in March last year, current president Howard Stringer called Hirai the “leading candidate” in the race for the next CEO. If the Nikkei report is to be believed, Stringer will stay on board as Sony’s Chairman and CEO.

In his role as the company’s Executive Deputy President, Hirai’s main responsibility is to control the Consumer Products & Services Group (TV, home video and audio, cameras, gaming, and mobile devices) and Sony’s “network business strategy”.

The Nikkei is reporting that Hirai’s promotion will be finalized next month at a Sony board meeting.

Are you ready for yet another memory card format? Dubbed XQD, the medium was first announced by Sandisk, Sony and Nikon in November 2010. And after the the CompactFlash Association finalized the specifications last month, Sony took the wraps off the world’s first XQD cards today.

Two versions of the card will be available, in addition to an XQD-compatible card reader (USB 3.0) and an ExpressCard Adapter. Here are some details from Sony America:

• QD-H16 card, 16 GB, $129.99
• QD-H32 card, 32 GB, $229.99
• Card Reader, MRW-E80, $44.99
• ExpressCard Adapter, QDA-EX1, $44.99

Sony says that the cards boast data transfer rates of up to 1Gbps/125MB/s write and read. From the press release:

Using the XQD memory cards, XQD compatible high-end DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera users can capture up to approximately 100 frames in RAW format in continuous shooting mode. In addition to outstanding high-speed data transfer capability, the new cards are highly reliable to protect users’ data and images.

Sony is planning to roll out the XQD memory cards, the reader, and the adapter next month.

Japan’s video game industry is the world’s second biggest (after the US), but it’s on a downward streak for the fifth consecutive year. Based on sales, the country’s video game industry has contracted by as much as 8% year-on-year, Japan’s biggest gaming magazine Famitsu is reporting [JP].

Between December 27, 2010 and December 25, 2011, Japanese game companies generated US$5.9 billion in sales. The Famitsu says that sales from hardware makers actually went up 2.4% (thanks to the launch of the 3DS and PlayStation Vita) to reach US$2.3 billion. Software revenues in Japan dropped 13.7% to US$3.6 billion last year.

This is how often the different video game systems sold in 2011 (total sales numbers in parentheses):

1. Nintendo 3DS: 4,135,739 units
2. Sony PSP: 1,960,177 (18,237,108)
3. Sony PlayStation 3: 1,467,261 (7,417,148)
4. Nintendo Wii: 937,451 (12,167,743)
5. Nintendo DS (all models combined): 711,204 (32,835,502)
6. PlayStation Vita: 402,794
7. Xbox 360: 114,075 (1,520,738)

This overview shows the top selling games in Japan in 2011 (total sales numbers in parentheses):

1. Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo 3DS): 1,082,391 units
2. Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo 3DS): 1,042,511
3. Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (Nintendo 3DS): 1,021,457 (4,502,446)
4. Monster Hunter 3G (Nintendo 3DS): 809,322
5. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Sony PS3): 697,146
6. Final Fantasy Type-0 (Sony PSP): 696,428
7. Rhythm Heaven Forever (Nintendo Wii): 633,429
8. Tales of Xillia (Sony PS3): 632,151
9. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo Wii): 612,807 (2,732,655)
10. Wii Party (Nintendo Wii): 584,545 (2,123,773)