Sony’s first foray into the handheld market may have been replaced over a year ago, but that’s not stopped the PlayStation Portable from proving that it’s still a force to be reckoned with in this week’s Japanese sales charts. Namco Bandai’s anime adaptation Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment soared straight to the summit of the latest Media Create best-sellers list, moving over 138k units on the aging PSP.
Unfortunately, the PlayStation Vita’s temporary spell at the top of the hardware charts was promptly put to an end by the 3DS. Sales for the system took a nosedive, dropping from 63k units to 36k units. Meanwhile, the PS3’s total tally increased on the back of the release of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX, which finished in second on the software leaderboard. Elsewhere, God of War: Ascension debuted in eighth with 19,744 units sold.
As always, we’ve included the full list of movers and shakers below. Are you satisfied with the Vita’s performance? Let us know in the comments section.
Hardware
3DS – 69,326 (60,800)
PlayStation Vita – 36,028 (63,581)
PlayStation 3 – 20,676 (19,567)
PSP – 12,721 (18,023)
Wii U – 9,539 (9,454)
Wii – 1,323 (1,363)
Xbox 360 – 543 (738)
Software
1. [PSP] Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment (Namco Bandai, 03/14/13) – 138,180 (New)
2. [PS3] Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix (Square Enix, 03/14/13) – 128,414 (New)
3. [3DS] Super Robot Wars UX (Namco Bandai, 03/14/13) – 115,384 (New)
4. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo, 11/08/12) – 58,578 (2,861,517)
5. [PSV] Soul Sacrifice (SCEJ, 03/07/13) – 29,121 (121,517)
6. [PS3] Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F (Sega, 03/07/13) – 26,248 (136,477)
7. [PS3] Dynasty Warriors 8 (Tecmo Koei, 02/28/13) – 22,122 (272,211)
8. [PS3] God of War: Ascension (SCEJ, 03/14/13) – 19,744 (New)
9. [3DS] Professor Layton and the Azran Legacies (Level-5, 02/28/13) – 14,976 (175,740)
10. [3DS] Dragon Quest VII: Warriors of Eden (Square Enix, 02/07/13) – 14,813 (1,174,077)
11. [PS3] Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft, 03/07/13) – 14,772 (48,054)
12. [PS3] Darkstalkers Resurrection (Capcom, 03/14/13) -11,591 (New)
13. [3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission (Namco Bandai, 02/28/13) – 11,396 (121,698)
14. [3DS] New Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo, 07/28/12) – 8,747 (1,969,564)
15. [PSV] Tales of Hearts R (Namco Bandai, 03/07/13) – 8,409 (63,668)
16. [3DS] Doraemon: Nobita no Himitsu Dougu Museum (Furyuu, 03/07/13) – 8,267 (21,035)
17. [PS3] Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Konami, 02/21/13) – 7,544 (394,452)
18. [PS3] Winning Post 7 2013 (Tecmo Koei, 03/14/13) – 7,143 (New)
19. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Best Price!) (Capcom, 11/15/12) – 7,098 (259,835)
20. [PSV] Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus (Marvelous AQL, 02/28/13) – 6,902 (118,364)
[source 4gamer.net, via gematsu.com, neogaf.com]
Comments 13
Stupid PSP. I can appreciate the reasons that games finally getting localized in the west still come out on PSP at this point, but more than a year after the launch of the Vita and a PSP game is the highest selling game in Japan. That's pure crazy.
@Squiggle55 Yeah, it's a bit crazy, isn't it? I think Sony should be doing more to encourage developers to release their PSP games on Vita instead. Presumably if Sword Art Online was a Vita game, the system would have had another big week.
Hopefully all the new PSP games, should be playable on PS VITA. The numbers are pretty good for the VITA.
@Squiggle55
Well to put it in perspective, Pokemon Black/White 2 were the highest selling games when they released. Which was about a year after the 3DS launched.
I don't understand why Sony didn't push for SAO: Infinty Moment to be released on the Vita, it could have helped move units in Japan and here in the West.
Regardless of that, I never expected the Vita to just come up and beat the 3DS. It just needs to sell well enough that 3rd party devs will start getting behind it. Now that's it doing so well, i'm sure we'll be hearing about new games for it anytime now.
If he vita can keep up selling 30,000 units a week, it will be a huge success. It just goes to show how insanely popular the 3DS is in Japan.
woo didnt expected that to beat kingdom hearts for top spot...
@hamispink Agreed. Sales will begin to look a lot healthier if it can keep hitting a number around that mark every week. And not wanting to start an argument like last week but I was right wasn't I Shinobi88? Really can't get my head around the 3DS numbers - all of Japan must have at least one by now and people are buying second or third machines too! That's easily going to become the most successful system ever over there.
@rastamadeus ds sales is 33 million in japan...3ds its far from the most successful...psp is hitting 20 million and 3ds is only half of psp now...and ps2 is 22 million in japan...
Who cares about the 3DS when we can continue to celebrate the Vita's rise to prominence?? That makes, what, FOUR straight weeks of decent sales despite only, what, ONE decent game coming out? It's amazing that Vita got to first place last week but like I've said all along it doesn't need to. It just needs to make some noise like this week and devs will flock to it knowin that it's more favorable to 3rd parties and original IPs.
@JavierYHL He means that the sales will likely reach beyond the 33 million sales of the DS. Remember, the 3DS is only 2 years old.
@rastamadeus I can't wrap my head around the PSPs' sales numbers either for that same reason. Its been out since 2004 and still selling pretty well so you'd think most of the people buying PSP games already have one.
It could be the same case for the PSP, people must be buying a replacement or backup handheld.
Sad to see Soul Sacrifice drop so fast, but oh well. Not going to affect my purchase of it (even though I do not yet own a Vita).
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