vita Worldwide Vita Sales Revealed in Sony Earnings Call

[CentralDogma]

1.8 million. That's how many PlayStation Vitas were sold as of March 31, as per Sony.

The information was revealed in a Sony earnings call following the company's annual earnings report today.

CEO Kaz Hirai on the system's sales:

"About Vita," Mr. Hirai said, "the last year, [we sold] 1.8 million units for US, Japan, Asia and Europe. And as a starting phase, I think that was a good start."

Sony had announced 1.2 million sales for the system at the end of February, meaning about 600,000 units were moved, worldwide, during the month of March.

Given the system's lackluster performance in Japan (the system sold just over 50,000 units in Japan in March; about 60,000 in February), most of the system's sales would seem to have come from the U.S. and European markets.

Mr. Hirai offered the following assessment on the importance of software for the Vita, moving forward.

"A game platform, like Vita ? the software is the key to success, how good the software is," he said. "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."

Sony expects to sell a total of 16 million PSP's and Vita's in its next fiscal year.

The Vita launched December 17, 2011 in Japan; worldwide two months later.

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For comparison, in Q4 the Vita sold 1.3m and the 3DS sold 2m.