The Xbox 360 continues to outsell the PlayStation 3 in terms of hardware sales for Japanese territories. Famitsu has released its prediction of the sales numbers for the week ending October 17 (last week at the time of writing). It’s good news for Microsoft and a mixture of good and bad news for Sony.

First of all, Sony is predicted to have sold 156,000 PSP-3000s. Managing 140k sales within four days of release in the Far East, it was definitely a successful launch for the new PlayStation Portable model. However, this high is followed by gloom for Sony, as the PS3 sales dropped even lower than previous weeks, with an abysmal 4,800 units sold.

Microsoft will be happy to hear they managed to outsell Sony in a region previously dominated by them (last generation – PS2). The Xbox 360 sold roughly 6,000 units in this period, approximately 1,200 (or 20%) more than the PlayStation 3. This is believed to be due to the price cuts and RPG listings recently put in place for the 360.

Here are Famitsu’s estimates:

PSP – 156k
DS Lite – 34k
Wii – 25k
PS2 – 7.8k
360 – 6k
PS3 – 4.8k