How clear, you wonder? Very clear. The Vita sold 4,021 units for that week. But by comparison, the 3DS sold 187,077. For those inclined to grab a calculator, let me spare you a step. Basically, for every one Vita sold in Japan last week, the 3DS sold nearly 47 units.
I'll give you a moment to catch your breath, because yes, that's a 47 to one ratio in favor of the Nintendo 3DS. So what drove that big a disparity? Well, as it turns out, a game release had something to do with it, as Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Leaf came out that same week, hitting number one on the sales charts and selling fully 721,786 copies. Some of which were bought with new systems just to play the game.
The end result on this one is that, indeed, Nintendo's handing Sony its collective hat on this one. The issue only gets worse when software is considered, as the top 30 chart in terms of game sales contains 14 3DS games. Yes, almost half. But the number of Vita releases? Not one. Sony didn't even release a game for the Vita last week at all in Japan.
That's not good news. This platform is already seriously lagging behind, and given the ongoing trouble that Sony's been having lately, the situation for them couldn't get much worse. They've been hacked, sales are dropping off, consumers are going elsewhere...now is not the time for the handheld to go south on top of it all.
Sony needs some absolutely killer apps to get interest back in the game. They need their own Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and they need it in rapid fashion. They need to get users interested in the platform again. With the 3DS leading the way so clearly, Sony's got a lot of ground to cover to make up the lag, and about the only way they'll pull that off is with some truly must-have games.
