Vita Sells 1.8 M Worldwide, Yearly PS3 Sales Down

Yesterday saw Sony release its financial reports for the fiscal year ending in March, releasing its investor conference call last night. A post on Eurogamer offered details from the conference call, which revealed that the PlayStation Vita sold 1.8 million units globally since its release in late 2011. In addition, it compares the 3DS’s performance in a similar span of time (January to March), noting that Nintendo’s console sold 2 million, revealing that the Vita’s performance isn’t too far behind its closest competitor.

Sony plans to have sold 16 million combined PSP and Vita units between now and March 2013, and company president Kaz Hirai acknowledged that an emphasis on strong software showings will factor into achieving that goal:

“A game platform, like Vita—the software is the key to success, how good the software is. We have to reinforce the software area in order to improve the business, that is the basic line.

“And vis a vis Vita, at this moment, there is no decline or lack of motivation as a portable platform. And also, in order to connect with the Network, 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. And services and software 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.”

Despite the relatively good news about the Vita’s overall performance, the company as a whole lost $5.5 billion this year, resulting in one of the worst financial years in a decade for Sony. The PlayStation 3 sold 13.9 million units this year, a decline from 14.3 million the year before—all in spite of the fact that its price was slashed at the end of the year.

All in all—not a great year for Sony. In fact, kind of a really sucky year. You’ve got your work cut out for you, Kaz. Good luck, buddy.

Via Eurogamer and Sony