The PS Vita is almost upon us and our palms are moistening at the prospect of getting to grips with our very own next gen Sony portable this Wednesday. Over in the East the gadget’s had a bit of a rough starting season, with disappointing sales figures since its push into the gaming market on December 17th, so much so that Sony has authorised stockists to slash the price of owning the console from a number of retailers and today we hear that online department store Amazon is to offer a 2000 yen cash back incentive to new PS Vita 3G model buyers.
If reports are true, Amazon will only be the first of a number of etailers and retailers who electronics and entertainment giant Sony will allow to give the sixteen quid refund over the next few months, in an attempt to keep up the amount of PS Vita units shifted which has dropped in a very short time. The first week’s figures read 324,859, then following that number dropped to just 72,479 and in the week ending February 12th that number again dwindled to 13,939. We’re reminded of Nintendo’s upsetting plight in the early days of the 3DS console. Who’s laughing now?
Sony’s aim for the PS Vita is that the handheld will serve as “a five to ten year platform” says Senior VP of Brand Marketing for the company’s American branch. Guy Longworth adds “we’ll judge the success of this in 12, 24, 36 months. We expect to have a great launch, but it’s really in 12 or 24 months we’ll know how successful it has been.”
In a conversation, Longworth confirmed that all of Playstation’s most popular studios will support the new portable platform and teased gamers with the bombshell that Activision’s Call of Duty should appear in some form on the PS Vita sometimes this Autumn.
Check out the PS Vita Europe promo clip in the Gadget Helpline article – Here.
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