14 DAY TRIAL // The PlayStation Vita was put on sale globally earlier this week and Sony is already saying that sales figures are quite encouraging both for the actual device and for accessories like memory cards, which are sold separately.
The PS Vita has been awaited for quite some time and, after its launch in Japan last December, was finally internationally released two days ago.
Since then, Sony confirms that sales have been quite good and, even if concrete data isn’t available just yet, the Vita is looking poised to make its lackluster Japanese debut a thing of the past.
Speaking with CVG, Sony UK Managing Director Fergal Gara has revealed that early sales are “very encouraging,” at least for now.
“We are in a new world, of course, where early sales don't only come from queuing at midnight, and there are a hell of a lot of pre-orders shipping today, which have been ordered either through retailers or online specialists, so judging the numbers at this stage is very hard. But people are coming through with re-orders, which is always exciting to see.”
Customers are also buying plenty of memory cards for their new Vitas and, rather surprisingly, a lot of people are getting bigger, 8GB or 16GB ones, instead of the cheaper 4GB one.
“Memory cards are attaching at a rate of greater than one to one. We've only got detailed data from a couple of retailers right now, but there's an unusual pattern in that in some retailers, it's the 16Gb card that is selling the best and in others it's the 8Gb one, but so far, nobody is selling the 4Gb ones the most.”
Gara says that Sony is expecting new Vita owners to buy more retail games for now, so memory cards aren’t going to be that popular with some people.
“We expect people to buy more games as packaged media than as downloads, and that's what the Japanese evidence suggests. So we really don't know how it's going to play out, other than that people have got a lot of choice here.”
Have you bought a PlayStation Vita yet? Did you also purchase a memory card or are you investing in games for the moment?