Sony insist that they had a ‘good start’ in terms of sales figures for its next generation portable gaming device, the PlayStation Vita, following its Japan release.
The handheld gaming market is torn straight down the middle between Smartphones and portable gaming consoles, and while the former has seen remarkable growth over the past few years, the latter still remains the true handheld gaming experience for many.
The current generation of handheld portable gaming devices sees two major players with Nintendo’s best selling console of 2011, the 3DS and Sony’s second generation handheld console, the PlayStation Vita.
The 3DS got off to a disastrous start which led to a huge price cut and reduction in the salaries of the company’s executives. However, since then the 3DS has gone from strength to strength, showing a significant improvement in sales, thanks largely to the
price cut and availability of an increased number of game titles.
As for the PlayStation Vita, well things seem to be on the same level as the 3DS was at its start, with a strong opening week of sales followed by a continuous slump in sales figures. After recording a figure of 324,859-units sold in its first week, sales
figures nosedived in Japan falling to 72,479-units sold the next week and the latest figures recording only 18,942 units sold.
Sony, though, do not think the sales figures are an issue and Masaru Kato, Executive Vice President of the Sony Corporation, stated, |Now the company has not publicly announced the shipping unit – unit of shipping and sales, at the appropriate time, we would
do so. But as far as the sell-through, three weeks have passed and sell-through is 500,000.”
Mr. Kato was of course commenting on the first three weeks of sales as he pointed out, “This was announced on the 10th of January. So as a start, I think we had a very – a good start.”
He also pointed out the importance of looking at software sales when one considered the Vita’s sales figures, he said, “including software and hardware, we are carrying out the sales promotions and we do it to boost the sales, and we do not think we have
any problems.”
So it seems that Sony is not too bothered about the sales so far, either that or they have a very good poker face.
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