Big Persona 4 debut revives PS Vita's Japanese sales

After languishing for several months, PS Vita hardware sales swelled in Japan last week thanks to the record-setting release of Atlus' Persona 4: The Golden for the system. Sony's handheld has struggled to sell meaningful numbers for most of this year, which many have blamed on a drought of big software titles for PS Vita. Starting with the release of Namco Bandai's Gundam Seed: Battle Destiny two weeks ago, though, we've been seeing slight upticks in console sales along with big releases. Persona 4 is not only the first PS Vita game to top the country's weekly software sales charts, its first-week sales of 137,076 copies is more than double that of the console's previous fastest-selling title, Sony's launch game Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational. The enhanced port of Atlus' critically acclaimed 2008 PlayStation 2 game helped push PS Vita hardware sales to 34,459 units for the week -- it's the first time in a while that the handheld has been able to reach half the sales of its chief rival, Nintendo's 3DS. PS Vita should see more help from Konami's Metal Gear Solid: HD Edition next week and Level-5's Time Travelers in mid-July. The Crystal White model's release next week -- the first alternative to PS Vita's black edition -- will likely also spur hardware sales. Full software and hardware sales charts for the June 11 to 17 period in Japan, provided by Media Create and translated on the NeoGAF forums, are available here.