PlayStation Vita Sales Rise In Japan Thanks To Persona

[compl3x]

Shortly after the Vita's release we wrote this story, this story, and this story, about how sales were disappointing for Sony's new handheld. With Persona 4 The Golden's Japanese release, however, the Vita's weekly sales have doubled.

Persona 4 The Golden was the best selling game across all consoles between June 11 and 17 at 137,076 units sold. It helped the Vita quite a bit, but the handheld is still trailing behind the Nintendo 3DS, which sold nearly twice as many systems during the same period of time.

[via Andriasang]

Persona 4 is going to be released in NA on 23rd of October 2012, according to wikipedia.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I have absolutely no doubt at all in my mind that the Vita will wind up being successful. Yes, I am well aware of the horrid sales basically to begin with. People can also bring up the point about tablets taking away the market. No doubt it is somewhat the truth, but for "real" gaming, there is simply no better experience then a dedicated handheld device. I put real in quotes as obviously there are some very enjoyable gaming experiences to be had on other tablet like mobile devices and phones. But those games that do work on those devices are a very specific type of game. The control scheme is usually incredibly simplistic. No doubt fun, but incredibly simplistic.

And I truly believe that people enjoy gaming enough that there are enough people who eventually want a fuller gaming experience on the go. They already have a console. They also already have a smartphone or iPad. And they will be willing to carry one more device to have that much deeper gaming experience. And this is a small example of titles convincing people it is finally time to pick the Vita up.

There will be even more titles within a year, maybe even two. And as soon as a Gran Turismo gets announced, or a Grand Theft Auto, there are enough gamers who are gonna want in on that action. It is no doubt not going to be the same sales that we have seen historically in the dedicated market, but it will be enough sales to the point the Vita will make a full "recovery." It is going to be a painfully slow recovery, but nevertheless, it will eventually see success. A price drop for the holidays will also go a long way.

Main reason I believe this... it is truly a fantastic piece of hardware. It already has some damn good experiences to be had, and it is just going to keep getting better.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Looking forward to this, I enjoy the Persona series! Now that the Vita is more powerful than the PSP, I don't think they've gimped some of the stuff Persona 3 Portable faced.

[Debus42]

In order for the Vita to start selling well in Japan they need to keep pushing games like this. Persona is massively popular over there, I love the series too, but the Vita needs to have a much bigger catalogue of games that are worth it for me to consider buying one. Spending ?200 to play just one game isn't justified to me just yet.

However, if they put Dragon Quest on it then Japan would go crazy.

[Fish]

DL, I respect your opinion, but I don't agree with you here. Sales have been poor, and I believe will continue to be even with titles such as GT and GTA. Great as those titles are, I'm looking for new IP, not rehashes and re-releases. This is what Vita needs to become more widely desirable. People want next gen, and Vita is not that. It is without doubt a fantastic piece of hardware, but it's just too expensive at the moment to be widely adopted.

Sorry for taking the thread off-topic.

[webdev511]

In order for the Vita to start selling well in Japan they need to keep pushing games like this. Persona is massively popular over there, I love the series too, but the Vita needs to have a much bigger catalogue of games that are worth it for me to consider buying one. Spending ?200 to play just one game isn't justified to me just yet.

Agreed, it would have been nice to have more games that didn't suck at launch, but the catalog is growning, albiet slowly. The touch pad on the back of the device has still proven to be virtually useless and while it won't change what Sony does, people are still going to grumble about the sony only memory card.

Hey Sony! MicroSD! Heard of it?

[compl3x]

However, if they put Dragon Quest on it then Japan would go crazy.

Yeah. Sony, get on that.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Agreed, it would have been nice to have more games that didn't suck at launch, but the catalog is growning, albiet slowly. The touch pad on the back of the device has still proven to be virtually useless and while it won't change what Sony does, people are still going to grumble about the sony only memory card.

Hey Sony! MicroSD! Heard of it?

I imagine the reason they haven't gone this route is that if they say fine you can use Micro SD cards, people will pick up the cheapest Class 4 they can find and then moan about horrendous load times etc. This way Sony know what the R/W speeds will be and they won't fluctuate between brand and pricing.