PS Vita sells 1.8M units worldwide, software 'must be strengthened' admits Sony CEO

Sony sold 1.8 million PS Vitas during the last fiscal year ended March 31, the company said today, while it projects that it will sell a further 10 million Vitas during the current fiscal year. As part of the company's 2011 fiscal year end earnings call, Sony president and CEO Kaz Hirai explained, "The last year [ended March 31], 1.8 million units for US, Japan, Asia and Europe [were sold]. And as a starting phase, I think it was a good start." The company previously said that the handheld had sold 1.2 million units worldwide by the end of February, meaning that it sold 600,000 units worldwide during March. Hirai continued, "For a game platform, like Vita, the software is the key to success -- how good the software is, that is the key to business success. We have to reinforce the software area in order to improve the business, that is the basic line." "Vis-a-vis Vita, at this moment, there is no decline or lack of motivation as a portable platform," he added. "This is a very important product indeed for us, and therefore we still have a very high motivation to develop this further. There is no change." He reiterated, "Software and services must be strengthened. In other words, the collaborative approach is very important, so is third-party. And from first-party studios, the titles will be presented one after the other, so please look at them and give your evaluation based on them." The PS Vita has seen lukewarm sales worldwide, while Nintendo's popular 3DS handheld outsells the system, and mobile game sales continue to rise. Japanese sales of Sony's handheld have been especially poor, dropping to just over 10,000 a week even during Japan's Golden Week holiday period. The company's financial results stated that the PSP and PS Vita will sell 16.0 million hardware units combined during the current fiscal year. When asked by an investor whether 10 million of this total will be the PS Vita, Hirai answered, "The volume is as you imagine."