In response to recent sales figures emerging from Japan that revealed the Nintendo Wii had outsold the Sony PlayStation 3 by six-to-one during June, Sony has spoken out to defend the poor sales figures for its next-generation machine.

We developed the PS3 as a hardware that lasts for decades and believe we are in a marathon rather than a sprint,” company spokesperson Nanako Kato said when asked by GamePro why the system was being outsold by rival Wii 6 to 1 in Japan. “With that said, SCE will accelerate the expansion of the PS3 platform over the next several months by offering a rich lineup of attractive software titles and pursuing own promotional activities as a platform holder.”

Slow and steady wins the race?

Regarding said promotional activities, Kato explained that the firm would be increasing demonstration spaces at retail stores and look to haggle advertising deals in partnership with third-party developers. The company also added that almost 1.8 million PS3 users have registered on the PlayStation Network to date as compared to the reported 6 million on Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Sony has sold an estimated 3.6 million PS3s worldwide since first launching last November.

Granted, it’s not strictly Nintendo-related news, but it’s always interesting to see how the opposition is reacting to the unprecedented worldwide success of the Nintendo Wii.