According to Media Create sales figures for the week ending December 16, PSP sales rose to 184,610 units – up from 91,481 units the previous week. Despite the impressive boost in sales, the PSP did not manage to surpass the DS, which pushed 222,132 units during the same time period.

The sharp increase in PSP sales has led us to once again ask the question: why is the PSP selling so well in Japan? It’s certainly not the games that are driving strong sales, as the PSP only managed to rank three titles in the top 50 software sales.

An obvious conclusion is that Japanese consumers are buying the PSP for its multimedia features. Another possibility is that consumers are purchasing content directly from the PlayStation Store. The Japanese store does have a rather large selection of PSone titles.

Weekly Ranking [Media Create]

Follow this author on Twitter.

Read more: Japanese Hardware Sales: PS3 Leads, PSP Takes Runner-Up,  PSP Shifts 10 Million Units In Japan,  2 Million PS3s Sold In Japan, PSP Maintains Top Spot,  PSP Weekly Sales Hit 100K, Nearly Double DS,  PSP Tops Japanese Sales Charts, Again