We all knew that the performance of the PS Vita has been growing steadily since last year following a number of price cuts, the release of numerous long-awaited games and now the launch of the PlayStation 4 but finally the PS Vita has grabbed the top position in the weekly hardware sales charts in Japan according to the latest sales figures from Famitsu for the week ending March 23rd.
Both the PS Vita and PS4 have seen a healthy increase, the PS4 no doubt partly due to the release of the latest chapter in the Metal Gear saga, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, but it is the PS Vita that is the most impressive as the chart highlights below:
- PS Vita – 36,533
- PS4 – 33,341
- Nintendo 3DS LL – 25,698
- PS3 15,030
- Wii U – 9,504
- Nintendo 3DS – 9,130
- PSP – 2,786
- PS Vita TV – 1,371
- Xbox 360 – 254
What is even more significant from these figures is that the PS Vita has sold more than both models of the 3DS combined – something that it hasn’t managed in previous weeks. Nintendo’s handheld has dominated the market for a considerable period of time but the Vita has now been making inroads for the last month and shows no sign of slowing down.
Interesting that all of the current Playstation products are in the top 4, where as Xbox 360 is in 10th place and there is no sign of Xbox One.
Microsoft hardware has never sold particularly well in Japan and being honest no-one is expecting the XBox One to perform any differently which is why it hasn’t been released yet.
If you actually look at the titles available for it, compared with the PS3, Vita and the entire PlayStation family, relatively few JRPG or “Japanese style” games have been released for the XBox range in comparison – the type of gamer who owns both systems do seem to differ when it comes to tastes in games.
Xbox One doesn’t arrive in Japan till September this year I believe, which is one of the reasons the PS4 wasn’t released in the territory till slightly earlier this year.