back to article Sony PS Vita sales fall shy of 3DS launch volume

Mobile-mad Japanese gamers bought 321,400 PS Vita handheld consoles this past weekend, local market watcher Enterbrain has revealed. A lot of units, to be sure, but behind Nintendo's 3DS launch, which saw 371,000 units snapped up in a similar two-day period. The original PSP clocked up two-day launch sales of 166,000 units …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Hype

    The 3DS was massively hyped and didn't deliver

    The PS Vita hasn't been hyped (as it will be supply constrained) and DOES deliver.

    BIG DIFFERENCE.....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I think you'll find it was hyped, check the gaming press, sites like eurogamer ahve been running nearly daily articles about it up till the JP launch.

      I can imagine its been hyped up in JP as well.

      Oh and they sold more 3DS's in the launch 2 days then vitas launch 2days, and i believe they sold more 3ds's in japan last week than vita on its launch weekend anyway (i may be wrong on this, seen reports but not numbers)

      but yeah, doesn't the 3ds obviously doesn't deliver......

  2. DrXym

    Nice looking device

    You get a lot of bang per buck from a Vita - quad core, 2xcapacitive touch, OLED, GPS, twin sticks, 2x camera, microphone etc. and on the face of it for an attractive price too.

    It's too bad that half the games require you buy a separate memory card which pushes the price up. I don't think people would object if the device used MicroSD cards, but it doesn't.

  3. Torben Mogensen

    Phone?

    Why doesn't Sony allow the 3G-enabled version to be used as a phone? It has all the required hardware (excepting, possibly, a microphone), so it should not be that hard to do. And it would avoid you having to carry two devices. It might not be as good a phone as a dedicated device, but not a terrible one either.

  4. Majid

    Handheld gaming consoles are dead.

    Rendered obsolete by smartphones. Or should I call them multipurpose transportable multimedia devices (where actually calling someone has just taken a backseat to all the other stuff you can do with it).

    So here's the recipe for a gamer for you:

    1. You want to game on a holiday you take your gaming laptop.

    2. You want to game while travelling you use your smartphone.

    3. You want to game at home, you take your 800 watt PC with dual graphical cards, and SSD's to match. (or gaming console, if you prefer being owned by PC gamers at any shooting game).

    1. jai

      sterotype

      that's such a typical response from a PC FPS'er

      not everyone in the world plays Counterstrike or Modern Warfare. and equally, not every game that is available for the Vita can be played on a pc or a smartphone

      the Vita just needs a few big brand exclusives to draw in the crowd. It's already got Uncharted. It just needs GTA, God of War, Killzone and Metal Gear Solid titles that aren't available on the PS3 and then it'll shift a chunk more units to fanatics like myself who otherwise wouldn't bother.

    2. Daniel B.

      Not a gamer, I suppose?

      True gamers actually want mobile gaming devices. The 3DS didn't sell so hot because SURPRISE SURPRISE most gamers already had a DS-something and 3D is mostly seen as a fad.

      Smartphone games are something an actual gamer will grow tired of pretty quickly before falling back to more traditional games. The ones that are truly hooked up on smartphone gaming are more of the casual gamers: old farts in the 40+ age group (who probably never put their hands on anything post-Atari, or didn't do games at all) and the small tots crowd, for which the games are pretty good as well.

      Too much hype on smartphone games. It is mostly the Wii effect: most Wii owners weren't gamers either.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    meh

    I like my 3DS. I had an original PSP in 2004, loved it, didn't love what Sony did with it, or didn't do to be more precise. Games in general were no more than adequate, no additional content.

    3DS is my first pocket Nintendo (if you rule out my second hand Advance Micro). Granted when it was first realised it was somewhat lacking in content.

    Now there are a lot of good games around, plenty of online shop content, reasonably frequent updates (Thursday release of new content).

    Only killer features it now needs are a chat system, txt or voice (both would be good), no reason a skype type app couldnt also be developed. Also we need netflix in the UK on these devices, especially if they 3D video.

    Might not be as good quality graphics as Vita, but the added depth in game play is very welcome in 3D, or if you've got tired eye you can ramp it down to 2D easily.

  6. NewOld86

    I've been keeping an eye on the Vita since the announcement at E3, the price seemed reasonable considering the tech that it has BUT the price of the memory cards has seriously put me off buying this at launch. I can only see myself buying this if cheaper brands of memory start to appear.

    The launch line up of games (in my opinion) has the best titles of any system.

    Sony wont add phone functionality to this model, but I can see them adding it to the next model as Sony and Ericsson have recently parted ways.

  7. MJI Silver badge

    Single PSN account?

    May be people are holding off until this is fixed.

  8. Peter H. Coffin

    Gizmo Saturation Level: Reached

    That's pretty much the problem at this point. It's been an entire year of a major competing handheld system released after everyone's been pretty dry for some time, with a major new "wow" feature. Maybe it's of debatable necessity, but it's at least New and Different, while the the Vita's a serious and practical evolution of the platform, without anything really new. It's also competing against dozens of smartphones with a wide variety of applications including games, tablets with a wide variety of applications including games, and e-reader devices that support a wide variety of applications including games. And pretty much anyone that can afford to have any of those has at least one already. In order to do *well* in that kind of a saturated market, a new entry needs to have a reason to sell to someone that can afford the money and attention to a *second* (or third or fourth) device, not being able to rely on customers well-disposed to the Playstation milieu and looking for *a* device to do portable entertainment things.

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