The video game market in Japan rose 21.7% from last year thanks to sales of local favorite, the Nintendo DS. Sales of its bigger brother the Wii and its handheld competitor the PSP also helped to expand the market. This information comes from magazine publisher Enterbrain.

Hardware sales rose 33.5% from last year and is currently up to JP¥ 138.3 billion (US$ 1.2 billion), amounting to 3.478 million DS unit and DS units sold in the first half of this fiscal year. Software sales rose 12.8% and is currently up to JP¥ 154.5 billion (US$ 1.3 billion).

We should expect to see the numbers keep on growing with the sales of the PSP Slim, which sold more than every other console combined for the week of September 23, boosted by sales of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Nintendo stocks were also reported to be the second highest in Japan last September 25.