With little to no Microsoft presence in Japan, Sony has a much better chance of gaining ground there than anywhere else in the world. Despite that, it's still been a tough haul for them, as the Wii has consistently outsold the PlayStation 3 month after month for nearly a year and a half. Recently, that's changed. Capcom and Sega both recently published several new titles for Sony's console, which promptly saw a rise in sales high enough to outsell the Wii for the first time in 16 months.
The numbers weren't stellar, showing roughly a 50,000 unit gain over Nintendo, at about 147,000 PS3s sold. Industry analysts don't see this as a major change, claiming that most developers are still primarily focused on the Wii, as it has the largest user base of current-gen consoles. Still, beyond cost and other factors, this might be a red flag for Sony: get more games and you'll sell more consoles.