Solid start

While the PlayStation Vita hasn’t got off to an especially speedy start, it’s not doing too badly. Speaking as part of a follow-up to this morning’s annual earnings report – in which Sony curiously withheld Vita sales data – new CEO Kaz Hirai revealed that the handheld has sold 1.8 million units in its past year. Obviously, the device hasn’t been on the market for a year, so that number covers its sales from launch up until the end of March 2012 in North America, Japan, Asia and Europe.

Sony previously reported that it had sold 1.2 million units at the end of February 2012, meaning it sold a respectable 600,000 units in the month of March. Considering the 3DS sold about 2 million units across the same period, the Vita’s figure isn’t especially bad – though obviously Nintendo’s handheld is a year older.

The Japanese company noted earlier that it expects to sell a combined total of 16 million units across Vita and PSP this financial year (ending March 2013). Assuming that the PSP manages to sell 6 million units during the period, that would mean Sony is targeting a figure of around 10 million units for the Vita. At current pace (around 600,000 units a month) the system would miss that target, so Sony clearly has some big announcements up its sleeve.

Naturally, Hirai wouldn’t disclose those announcements, but he did stress the importance of quality software. He said:

A game platform, like Vita - the software is the key to success, how good the software is. We have to reinforce the software area in order to improve the business, that is the basic line.

And vis-a-vis Vita, at this moment, there is no decline or lack of motivation as a portable platform. And also, in order to connect with the Network, this is a very important product indeed for us, and therefore we still have a very high motivation to develop this further. There is no change. And services and software must be strengthened.

In other words, the collaborative approach is very important, so is third-party. And from first party studios, the titles will be presented one after the other, so please look at them and give your evaluation based on them.

The company officially announced Soul Sacrifice earlier today, with presumably much more to come at E3. Judging from Hirai’s comments, there’s a lot to look forward to.

[source eurogamer.net]