PS Vita Continues To Out-Sell PS4 In Japan

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Despite performing poorly in the West, it’s no real surprise that the PS Vita is still managing to achieve reasonable sales in its homeland, Japan week after week and it’s no wonder that there is a steady flow of games being released for the console there both digitally and – more importantly – at retail, something that is lacking here in the EU.

The latest figures released from Famitsu not only show the PS Vita still performing well in a market dominated by Nintendo, but it is also performing considerably better than the PS4 (which is now starting to make inroads in Japan), the PS3 and the XBox One which has failed to generate any real interest in the territory so far. The latest chart for hardware sales (week ending 18th January 2015) are:-

  1. New Nintendo 3DS LL – 28,060
  2. PS Vita – 18,226
  3. PS4 – 13,074
  4. New Nintendo 3DS – 11,166
  5. Wii U – 9718
  6. Nintendo 3DS – 6,422
  7. PS3 – 6,061
  8. Nintendo 3DS LL – 4,790
  9. PS Vita TV – 716
  10. Xbox One – 531

From the figures above it’s clearly still a Nintendo market but the prevalence of handheld gaming over consoles is a clear indicator of the key differences between the markets and is potentially a positive sign for the Vita in the long term. With two PS Vita games making an entry into the Top 10 at retail in Japan and these figures pointing at sales of over 250,000 units this year in Japan alone, commerically it makes sense for continued development of new Vita titles in Japan. While these titles may not be viable for physical releases in the West, digital releases – as has been the case so many times in the last year or so – is quite likely.

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About Simon Plumbe 1094 Articles
Husband, father and lifelong geek. Originally from the West Midlands, now spending my days in South Wales with my family and a house full of animals. Passionate about video games, especially retro gaming, the Commodore 64 and PlayStation Vita. Love pro wrestling, sci-fi and I'm an animal lover and vegetarian. Enjoyed this and my other articles? Why not buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/simonplumbe

4 Comments

  1. The big problems that the Vita has had in Europe and America are down to marketing and pricing. Memory cards are still notoriously expensive and with the limited distribution of physical games, it’s almost impossible to own a decent Vita games collection without the need for large / multiple memory cards. It’s safe to say that a lot of people have been put off buying a Vita because of the price of memory cards.

    When it comes to marketing, Sony’s initial approach of selling the PS Vita as a portable PS3 was a big mistake. It lead gamers – certainly in the West – to expect games like Uncharted, Killzone etc on a regular basis and not the type of game that you would want to play on the move. In reality it should have been marketed as a high-powered handheld and offered a range of games for all the family. Here in the UK now stores only sell a handful of titles and give little display space to the Vita despite it having a massive range of games available. But to the average consumer they don’t think there’s anything available.

    With a greater dependence on physical titles, people see more games for the DS/3DS and it becomes a more popular console regardless of its technical capabilities. It’s not logical but now we’re at the stage where people’s expectations are different to what the Vita SHOULD be offering and what it should have been since day one.

    • exactly as my sis said, playstation & sony cater to my country more (more events, more games, lower/higher prices, higher quality, friendlier playstation community, racism from americans) also nintendo is a japanese company along with sony playstation, & yes it does matter what country everyone is in. want best things? then move to the country that makes it, also i support both sony & playstation over all companies & i wouldnt care about prices since i know a sony CEO & a sony president & as i said before i support sony and playstation 🙂

  2. I wouldn’t say Sony caters to Japan. If they did, they would’ve ensured Monster Hunter on Vita. Asia also houses the fewest SCE development studios.

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