They love Walkmans in Japan. So much so that Sony’s Walkman line has temporarily passed the iPod for sales in Japan again, according to researchers at BCN. Players like the S640 helped Sony slide past in August with 47.8 percent of sales where Apple dropped to 44 percent. The Walkman overtook the iPod briefly a year ago, but these new figures mark the first time that Sony managed to hold an overall lead for the month.

The iPod nano 8GB and 16GB were still the top sellers, but it was the variety of Sony players that ultimately overwhelmed their numbers.

The unthinkable has happened. For the first time in 16 months, sales of the PS3 in Japan jumped 80% in the last five weeks of March compared to a year ago. At the same time, demand for the Wii went down by almost 63% to 99,335.

You can chalk up at least part of this to the release of a few new popular games like Resident Evil 5. Which helped up the PS3′s sales figures beyond the Wii’s for the first time since November a few years ago. It should also be noted that nearly everyone in Japan seems to already own a Wii.