Fourth place for Vita in Japanese charts
Outsold by predecessor the PSP for second week running
Sony's PlayStation Vita only managed fourth place in this week's Japanese hardware charts, despite launching just before Christmas.
Perhaps most worryingly of all for the hardware manufacturer with sales of 42,648 it was even outsold by the PSP, which took third place with 62,746.
The biggest seller was the Nintendo 3DS with 197,952, followed by the PlayStation 3 with 67,199, leaving Vita with just over 10 per cent of total hardware sales.
Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS topped the software sales chart, with 109,463. Nintendo currently dominates software sales in Japan with 13 of the games in the top 15 were for Nintendo platforms, no doubt connected to the popularity of the 3DS over the Christmas period.
All sales figures were supplied by Media Create.
The PlayStation Vita launched in Japan on December 17, selling 324,859 in its first week but then seeing a 78 per cent drop in sales to sell just 72,479 in its second.
But according to this same story on Eurogamer (who give actual top 5 sales figures and top 30 chart placements) only 5 of the top 15 selling games last week were 3DS games - 3 were on PS3 and the other 7 were Wii games.
From what I've seen, PSP's can be be much cheaper than the vita, and I can understand why people would prefer it.
If I want to play large, splendid games, I use a console or PC with large screen and tactile comfy controls. When I'm on public transport, or feel the need to play a handheld games I normally go for something more basic, fast and easy. PSP supplies that. Much the same as a smart phone does.
I see the point in dropping support for UMDs (they shouldn't have made those things to begin with), but what's the point if they're replacing them for a "PS Vita Game card"? Maybe does it ensure backwards compatibility for the Vita 2? And should I buy new memory cards too? Why, what's the practical reason for ditching the memory sticks? This is only becoming a bigger and bigger mess, a simple transfer of a savegame or picture from one memory to the other requires me to use adapters, cables, external readers, switching of usb plugs.
And finally, will savegames be universal? It's unbelievable that I lost my savegames just because I switched to a PSP slim. I don't know if the rumours wanting Sony to give free access to already owned UMD games is true, but won't I lose my savegames yet again?
Considering that UMD prices are dropping and that I didn't even try all of the games I own yet, why should I help funding their insanity?