December 17 was the launch date for Sony's new PS Vita portable console in Sony's home country of Japan. The first two days of sales were very high with reports that 321,000 units of the PS Vita were sold in that time period. However, sales reportedly took a big nose dive in the next week, as much as 75 percent lower than the launch week.
Now comes word that sales of the PS Vita are continuing to drop in Japan. Andriasang reports that according to stats provided by Media Create, the PS Vita sold just 18,361 units in Japan for the week ending January 15. That compares to sales of 42,915 units from the previous week. The PS Vita is now being outsold by the older but cheaper PSP portable console. It has sales of 22,538 units for that same week.
This situation parallels 2011's launch of Nintendo's 3DS portable system. Both the 3DS and the PS Vita were expensive and didn't have a lot of "must have" games when they launched. The 3DS started out well but sales quickly slowed down and Nintendo decided to cut the 3DS's price down substantially before people started buying it.
Sony may be forced to quickly make a price cut if sales of the PS Vita continue their downward spiral. Meanwhile, the launch of the US and European versions of the PS Vita continue as planned for February 22.
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