Sony Corporation’s PS Vita has been gathering dust in people’s homes for some time now. However, the handheld device, which has lost hope in North America, is still doing good business in Japan. While many people may consider Vita to be Sony’s last hurrah in handheld devices, the Japanese market provides a completely different picture. Sony is heavily riding on the success of its latest Playstation 4, a console that is expected to surpass the sales of the highest-selling console in history, Playstation 2. The PS4 has been so successful that Sony has revolved Vita’s main purpose around it, thanks to a feature called “Remote Play”.
Remote Play allows users to stream PS4 games on the Vita via an internet connection. Other than this useful feature, PS Vita’s sole purpose has been to play indie games on its glorious OLED screen. The Vita has been devoid of first party support from Sony after games like Tearaway, Uncharted Golden Abyss and Killzone. However, Japanese gamers have always been big time fans of portable gaming devices. This is largely due to the workaholic culture of the country that people don’t get to spend much time at home. Moreover, third party developers in Japan have been providing Vita with a lot of quality software due to its popularity in the region. Persona 4: Dancing All Night and Chaos Child have been highly successful games in Japan and due to such successful releases, the PS Vita was able to surpass the 12 million mark in worldwide sales.
PS Vita has managed to sell 4 million units in Japan as of now which is far more than the sales it has had in North America. Japan’s video game sales have been heavily dominated by handheld consoles, and while Nintendo’s 3DS holds a strong lead at this time, the PS Vita is not far away. The success of PS4 worldwide has provided Sony with multiple opportunities for risk-taking in the future. Sony’s first entrant in the handheld market, the PSP was a great success with lifetime sales of 80 million. However, the PSP’s success was largely due to the fact that it had far more third party support than mobile and tablet games which weren’t that popular at the time.
Sony must preserve its strong sales in Japanese markets by releasing more Vita dedicated games, and while Vita’s future looks bleak in North America, a lot can be done in the future if Sony releases quality software for the handheld device. Vita may well be Sony’s last shot at handheld gaming, and it could mean that Nintendo will be handed a monopoly in the handheld gaming business in the future. However, if the trend of Vita sales in Japan continues to grow, fans can expect a revival of the Vita.
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