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Sony's PS3 Slim is Biggest Japanese Game News of '09, says Famitsu

Posted January 4, 2010 by James Brightman

With 2009 now in the rear-view mirror, the Japanese games magazine Weekly Famitsu has compiled its rankings for the top news in the Japanese games industry, based on votes from readers and the publication's retail network. The top news honor went to the launch of the new, slimmed down PlayStation 3 [thanks PS3Hyper].

IndustryGamers also picked the launch of the PS3 Slim as one of the biggest news events of last year - the console launch placed 12th on our Top 20 Stories list. Of course, we and Famitsu readers selected the PS3 not only for its new sexy form factor, but also because it finally introduced a desperately needed price cut to the hardware.

Other top news events of 2009 from Famitsu Weekly included the releases of Final Fantasy XIII and Dragon Quest IX and the launch of the new, larger model DSi LL.

Here are the top 10 news events:

1. New model of PlayStation 3 announced. (112 Reader Votes / 42 Retailer Votes)
2. Final Fantasy XIII release date announced. (65 / 21)
3. Dragon Quest IX sold more than 2 million copies in two days. (49 / 20)
4. Nintendo DSi LL goes on sale. (40 / 9)
5. PSPgo announced. (32 / 14)
6. Nintendo sues R4 makers and sellers. (27 / 13)
7. PSP-3000 price drop. (34 / 3)
8. Project Natal announced. (28 / 2)
9. Final Fantasy XIV announced. (24 / 1)
10. Trico (aka The Last Guardian) announced. (19 / 0)

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.