It’s been a good couple of years for basically everything with a Nintendo label on it. On the other side of that, things with Sony emblazoned on them haven’t been doing quite as good. Maybe 2008 is going to change that, at least in Japan. Gamasutra is reporting that Famitsu publisher Enterbrain is reporting that the PSP is leading in hardware sales for the first half of 2008. The numbers come from a recent release of sales data that shows a total of 1,583,731 PSP units being sold during the time period of April to September. The Nintendo DS was very close with 1,314,919 units sold during the time span and about twice as many lifetime units sold.

Good news for Sony, but there is bad news for the industry overall. The sales data shows that sales are down 33.5 percent, the first drop in over four years. Whether this is because the new system surge is finally dying out or other more economic reasons isn’t clear, but there’s been a drop. Oh, and just in case you’re worried about Nintendo because you have nothing better to do than worry about companies who are making money hand over fist, don’t. They still have the top selling console (Wii) and the top selling game (Mario Kart Wii) in all of Japan. Let Sony have this one though, they need it.