Andrew House, the boss at Sony Computer Entertainment, has pointed out strong sales of the 3DS in an attempt to show that dedicated gaming handhelds are still relevent in todays age of iPhone’s and Android’s.
“Normally we don’t really reference the competition a lot when we talk about the PlayStation business,” House said in an interview with PlayStation Blog at CES. “But in this case it’s perhaps a little salutary that the sales of the 3DS – you know, having the advantage of releasing a little bit ahead of us – have been exceedingly good.”
The 3DS launched in Japan in February 2011 and received an unprecendented price-cut in July of that year . The handheld has now sold over 6.68 million units worldwide, a figure it reached before its predeseccor the Nintendo DS.
“I think that shows that there is in general a lot of demand for a gaming primary portable device, which is how I would describe Vita,” House added. “But you know, our device in contrast has just so much more to offer. What I think we’ve done is point to a market that really has started out with potentially casual games that are on other devices, but now wants a deeper, a better or more premiere gaming experiences.”
The Playstation Vita has only recently hit 500,000 units sold in Japan.
Vita is out in Europe and North America on the 22nd of February.