Opening weekend sales numbers for the PlayStation Vita have been roughly placed around 320,000 units, which is an arguably fine showing when you consider that Nintendo, who has much more history in the portable marketspace, still only moved 370,000 Nintendo 3DS units during their debut weekend. Unfortunately, Sony was unable to maintain any momentum after launch, only able to move 72,479 units in the week that followed, while another 482,200 Japanese consumers opted to pick up a 3DS.
With the 3DS now outselling the Vita at about 6.5 to 1, Sony has a huge stumbling block to overcome in this console war. These battles are won simply by whomever can get more units into consumer hands, as developers flock to the system with the best chance of selling their software, making it an even more attractive buy. Rushing a console onto the market to try and snap up early adopters is a risky gambit (just ask the Dreamcast), though it worked for both the Playstation 2 and Xbox 360, and could work here for the Nintendo 3DS.
We'll be keeping an eye on this war closely. Though Nintendo has a very strong lineup of games headed this way, the power inside the Vita may prove capable of handling more impressive games overall, and earn the Sony device some much needed exclusives.
Sales numbers from: NeoGAF, Joystiq, Edge
