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The Vita is selling worse than the PSP

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When the PlayStation Vita launched in Japan late last year, it sold like proverbial hotcakes. For its first week, at least. Since then it’s been on a steady decline, and to say sales are currently poor would be a fair bit of hypobole. In fact, according to Media Create – one of Japan’s sales tracking services, akin to North America’s NPD – it’s now reached the point where its weekly sales are lower than that of the comparatively ancient PSP.

In the week ending January 15, retail outlets sold just 18,361 units – over 4 thousand shy of the aged PSP’s weekly total. According to Andriasang, the Vita’s sales timeline looks like this :

324,859 -> 72,479 -> 42,648 -> 42,915 -> 18,361

While I’m sure it’s disappointing and disheartening for Sony, it’s not entirely unexpected. All the technolust-filled early-adopters with big enough wallets already have one. It’s not particularly dissimilar to the situation with the PSP. That only managed half a million units in its native land in the month followings its release, but a bolstered library, a price drop and a hardware revision or two later and there are now over 70 million the things in peoples hands.

Nintendo’s 3DS performed similarly; incredible sales in its first week followed by a sharp decrease, prompting the company to slash its price. It’s now firmly atop the Japanese hardware sales charts, where it’s been for weeks. Right now? I don’t think the Vita’s going to do especially well anywhere in the world. It’s an expensive bit of kit and there’s a limited number number of people with the inclination and the money to purchase the thing, but just as with the PSP, I believe it’ll really take off in a year or two when its pricing drops to the levels needed for mass market penetration.

Me? Of course I’m getting one.

Last Updated: January 23, 2012

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