Metal Gear Solid HD gives PS Vita Japanese sales boost

PS Vita hardware sales saw a boost in Japan last week as a white version of the Sony handheld was released alongside the launch of Metal Gear Solid HD Edition. The Vita sold 25,636 during the week ended July 1, nearly doubled from the previous week's 13,589, while Metal Gear Solid HD reached number eight in the charts in its opening week, with 20,139 units sold. However, the top 30 is still mostly devoid of Vita titles. Apart from Persona 4 Golden sitting at number 13, no other Vita titles sold more than 6,000 units at retail this week. Sony's previous handheld, the PSP, is still enjoying reasonable success as far as software sales are concerned, with six titles in the top 30, four of which were new releases. In comparison, Nintendo's 3DS was once again the best-selling console of the week, shifting 66,391 units. Last week's number one, Pokemon Black and White 2, continued to sell by the bucketload -- the pair of games has now sold almost 2 million in Japan, having sold 1.6 million in its opening weekend. Full software and hardware sales charts for the June 25 to July 1 period in Japan, provided by Media Create and translated on the NeoGAF forums, are available here.