PS Vita's first week sales in Japan were double that of the original PSP, but it still failed to beat Nintendo 3DS' first week sales and it was outsold by the 3DS in its (PS Vita's) launch week.
During its launch week in Japan, PS Vita sold 324,859 units, almost twice as much as the 166,074 PSP units sold in launch week, but still less than Nintendo 3DS' first week sales of 371,326 units.
"To be honest we would like to have seen it sell a bit more, but you can say that it reached a certain level of success," local tracking firm Media Create commented on the numbers it assimilated.
Media Create CEO Atsushi Hosokawa noted that PS Vita sold only 65% of the 500,000 Sony prepared for launch week. The CEO reasoned that this less-than-expected sales figure is due to the handheld's high price and the lack of strong launch titles.
Interestingly, the 3DS managed to sell 367,961 units during the same week. This strong sales figure was no doubt fueled by the handheld's strong holiday games lineup (which includes Monster Hunter Tri-G, Mario Kart 7, and Super Mario 3D Land), but it is worth noting that it is not that much higher from previous weeks. For example, the 3DS sold 350,321 units two weeks ago.
