7th Gen Vs. 8th Gen Aligned Launch - Handhelds, February 2012 Update - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 08 March 2012 / 11,177 Views
The ‘7th Gen Vs. 8th Gen Aligned Launch – Handhelds’ article is a monthly feature and it will compare the seventh generation of handhelds (DS, PSP) to their successors in the eighth generation of handhelds (3DS, Vita). Now that the PlayStation Vita is available worldwide, the PSP versus Vita comparison charts have been added.
DS Vs. 3DS
Looking at the monthly sales with the launches aligned, the DS lead for four of the first six months, but once the 3DS had its price cut from $250 to $170 it quickly retook the lead. The 3DS entered its first holiday in its tenth month on the market while the DS entered its second holiday in its 13th month, which explains the huge gap in the aligned 11th month. The DS will have a lead in next month’s article, for the 14th aligned month.
Looking at the most recent month the 3DS sold 907,251 compared to 1,362,040 for the DS. The DS has a lead of 454,789 in month 13. In the next month, expect the DS to outsell the DS by at least 3.5 million units.
The gap between the 3DS and DS shrunk in the aligned 13th month on the market. The 3DS lead by 7,430,360 the previous month and is down to 6,975,571. The gap is expected to shrink to between 3.0 million and 3.5 million in the next month. The 3DS is currently three months ahead of the DS during the same amount of time on the market.
PSP Vs. Vita
Now that the PlayStation Vita is available worldwide, it’s time to compare the PSP and Vitas aligned sale. Each platform’s first month was nearly identical with the Vita only outselling the PSP by just 12,685 units. However the PSP had a much smaller drop in its second month on the market.
Looking at the most recent month the Vita sold 628,117 compared to 186,082 for the PSP. The Vita taking a huge lead in the third month is because the Vita was released globally, while the PSP wasn’t released in North America until its fourth month and its 10th month in Europe.
Looking at the total sales over each platforms first three months, the Vita lead slightly in its first month and fell below the PSP in its second month by 143,749. However with its global release it regained its lead in its third month. The current gap is at 298,286.
Contact VGChartz at wdangelo@vgchartz.com
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these graphs are very misleading. The psp didn't launch in europe until 9 months after it launched in Japan while the vita is already out in Europe. You see that 9month jump the psp had. Thats because of Europe's launch and the psvita won't have that.
Ultimately goes to show how much sales are driven by the western markets for Sony portables during launch window.
my comment is directed at those posts that seem to think the vita is doing better than the psp. It could very well beat it at the end, but its launch has been much worse than the original psp.
I wouldnt call that misleading, you apparently know this knowledge yourself. Its just a cahrt aligning launches. It needs more time to really display what is going on. Given the 2nd week data on the Vita, its looking like it is doing just fine, if it keeps up it might surpass the 3ds in morethan just europe.
Graphs are fine if you analyse them properly. As time passes, the effect of such things (and short term spikes) will start to become insignificant and the trends will be easier to see.
Oh, so the different launch causes that erratic look in PSP sales.
Dat 3DS
Nice graphs
I definitely have more faith in the 3DS than the Vita at this point, which is why I bought one.
As I thought the Vita will fall even harder than the PSP.
People seem to forget that the 4th month PSP sales were just from North America. So after 4,5 Months the PSP had 2 million sold in only JPN and NA while the Vita probably will struggle to get there when it's released globally! That is quite the difference.
The 3DS is going strong since the price cut however I doubt Sony would do the same with the PSV to get sales numbers up and I'm pretty sure Sony expected that the Vita would sell a lot better than it does now.
They both are doing pretty good, no problem with handhelds this generation as some analysts seem to think.
This only provides evidence that psvita will be getting a price drop to give sony a spike in sales unless they can catch fire with future software releases
nice!!
The graphs are very similar, considering this generation has been very successful for handhelds, those graphs are good news for the 3DS and Vita.
There are several factors that would convince me to get a Vita:
- A price drop
- It needs to be hacked - AND ABLE TO PLAY N64 GAMES
-
Needs at least 10 games that I am interested in
I'll probably pick one up after the second price drop, it will be a better system by then.
This only provides evidence that psvita will be getting a price drop to give sony a spike in sales unless they can catch fire with future software releases
This is not 4th generation for handhelds? I don't get this.
"expect the DS to outsell the DS by at least 3.5 million units." hmmmm what?
Pretty interesting, great that PSvita isn't as doomed as it sounded, right you can discount the peak of the 9th month, but it will win the sales of 6 months that should be enough to overcome that. Hopefully things will get better for it.
3DS amuses me, 3 months ahead of DS, and those 3 months are the holiday season! impressive sales for it
It would have been smarter to do this with next weeks data as well since the PSP would have released outside of Japan in the comparision. As for 3DS, I hope it continues to sell well, but I have a feeling it won't outsell DS lifetime because a) not much of am improvement graphically, will look aged sooner, b) sales aren't that much higher despite the price cut. However you never know, if 3DS sells for less then DS end of life, if could outsell it.--------------------Nice article, would liike to see this updated.
Just wait 'till Uprising comes out. xD
Considering the almost identical results between the PSP and PSV, its safe to say that the PSV sales is shaping up nicely, the only thing that's in the way of the future success of the device is the amount of quality games provided to the system.
For goodness sake actually ready the article not just the pretty pictures. See those huge spikes at 4 months and 10months for the PSP? Yea well the PS Vita has already had those (US and EU Launch).
Handhelds are dead?
wow, much better for vita than I had previously thought. I really have to stop listening to the forum doom.
Did you even read the article? The original PSP took a long time to come out in Europe and was a little longer to come out in America as well. The big spike at 4 months for psp is the american release. At 10 months it is the European release. The Vita has both of those already and it is still only just staying ahead in sales.
Not bad Vita slightly ahead of PSP
