Sony isn’t concerned over modest sales of PlayStation Vita hardware in Japan, noting the satisfaction rate among consumers is “really high.”
Speaking to GameSpot at CES, John Koller, hardware marketing director at Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), commented, “If you look at the word-of-mouth factor, it’s really strong because people are bringing it home and really enjoying it.”
“That satisfaction rate is really high. But also in terms of when we funnel in additional hardware units, that’ll dictate how many sales there are and how many sell through.”
“We’re still in the first couple weeks, and we’re trying to get as many units into market as possible. We’re going to give it some time, but overall those numbers have been to forecast.”
Sony’s new handheld moved around 325,000 units over its launch weekend back in December, though sales soon dipped to 72,500 units the following week. It’s now shifting around 40,000 units each week.
However, Koller said Sony’s been keeping an eye on recent handheld launches in order to avoid going in all guns blazing on release day, only to suffer a software drought in the months that follow. As such, Vita will have a heap of major games out soon after launch.
“What we really wanted to do, and I think we learned from past, most recent, handheld device launches, is that you don’t want to launch strongly and then go dark for three or four months and have nothing,” he said.
“So in subsequent months for Vita, we have launch, then we have MLB, then we got Mortal Kombat, then Resistance, then Little Big Planet, then Call of Duty, and Assassin’s Creed.”
PlayStation Vita is due out in North America and Europe on February 22.