[ConradCervantes]

The GameStop I worked at only had three preorders total between all the skus. It made sense though; my old boss was extremely anti-handheld.

[Joe Molotov]

I went to Hastings and bought one Wednesday night because I had store credit there, and the guy that opened the video game case was like "Wow, the Vita came out already?" and when I brought it up to the counter, the guy there was like "I didn't know we had these in yet."

So, yeah.

[Eteric Rice]

I think my Gamestop sold about 6 or 7 all together. One was traded in.

[fernoca]

A friend of mine got one with Uncharted and Ninja Gaiden; because a co-worker had one.

But stores around here are quite full of stock and games it seems. We went 2 days after release and Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, Gamestop, Best Buy all had units/boxes in display; so he ended going to Gamestop just because of the points for the PowerUp (no rewards in Best Buy PR, and Toys R Us has a rewards program but they all charge more for games/hardware/software).

But around here, aside 3DS after pricecut and Wii during the first few years and the holidays; there are usually no shortages of stock. So at the moment, seems to be doing decent for how little it was advertised around (i.e. a poster here and there and nothing else, no Vita Clubs, late demo units), but not good or great .

[HaRyu]

The Best Buy where I got my 3G Vita, they ordered 8 of them, and three of them were reserved for preorders.

Checked back in that Best Buy today, looks like they only have one 3G unit left. They had five wifi units on the shelf though. Was kinda expecting people to purchase the wifi more than the 3g.

[Corto]

Almost no one knows about this system in my country. Pretty shocking considering it is one of the last sonyland territories in the world. Its a small market but Sony fucked up big time.

What, here in Portugal? We have ads running on the big TV broadcasts (this one) pretty regularly and SIC had a big report on the night news the day before release. Fnac is giving it a big push also. I'm not saying that it will sell like hotcakes here, but the target audience for first adopters of such a device are certainly alerted to it.

[antonz]

The Best Buy where I got my 3G Vita, they ordered 8 of them, and three of them were reserved for preorders. Checked back in that Best Buy today, looks like they only have one 3G unit left. They had five wifi units on the shelf though. Was kinda expecting people to purchase the wifi more than the 3g.

Alot of people are gonna get sucked into 3G expecting it to do things it really cant. On top of that they have the whole buy 3G one and get the free PSN game semi scam.

[tim.mbp]

The GameStop I worked at only had three preorders total between all the skus. It made sense though; my old boss was extremely anti-handheld.

That doesn't make sense at all.

[Nobodyspatzy]

Target is THE place to get Wipeout, Uncharted and a few other titles it seemed thanks to the sale! The Vita itself sold VERY well (about 10+ WiFi models according to the guy who covers the electronic section). While not a sellout, they only have 3G ones left though.

The demo unit...THAT is what is getting people excited! only Best Buy and the Super Target have it here, BUT I have generally heard positive things from everyone trying it out. (I myself fell in love the moment I played Gravity Rush <3)

The only Gamestop I went to was surprised I asked about the sales (as I always Streetpass with them when I go there) but only have the 3Gs available too. One of the stores in the area still has WiFi models too, but I haven't been. Already spotted a few used Uncharted, and I think something else (not sure..I think UMvC3..)

Overall, very good launch for this area..about the same as the 3DS launch. I am very hopeful, and hope to join the ranks once I you know, GET MONEY. =p

[Anticitizen One]

I think above ground transit is safe depending on the time of day, but subways and trains it'd be a little risky.

lmao nobody is going to try to snatch your vita. People want iPhones and iPads

[HaRyu]

lmao nobody is going to try to snatch your vita. People want iPhones and iPads

Tell that to one the guys in the main Vita thread, someone snatched his.

[vaelic]

Went to a GameStop on the 23rd and there were about four people in line for Vita. They didn't look like they were together either. Guy at the register said sales were pretty steady but nothing amazing... looks like a solid launch so far?

What an amazing post

[MYE]

What, here in Portugal? We have ads running on the big TV broadcasts (this one) pretty regularly and SIC had a big report on the night news the day before release. Fnac is giving it a big push also. I'm not saying that it will sell like hotcakes here, but the target audience for first adopters of such a device are certainly alerted to it.

Yeah, but they(sony) seem VERY quiet about the Vita when compared to the releases of PS2/PSP/PS3 here in Portugal. At least it seems to me like they are.

I expected a more agressive marketing campaign from them.

[GTP_Daverytimes]

Is it bad that I wish it starts off poorly so it price drops quickly? I want one so bad t.t not for $250 though.

Yes, its bad.

[CrankyKong]

Was in a JB HiFi/EB Games in Aus on launch day and I saw a few people buying Vita accessories.
Hopefully that means they bought the system too

[Lonely1]

I hope It doesn't sell out so I can get one.

[cyborg009]

Tell that to one the guys in the main Vita thread, someone snatched his.

Really how and who?

[jbueno]

I still haven't gotten to play with one though... anyone here get "convinced" after using one?

I'm a believer now, but I'm waiting for more interesting titles and regional releases to decide which system to get.

[Jinfash]

I've seen nobody with a Vita in public, and I ride public transportation in Chicago daily riding with a few thousand+ people on the Metra and CTA, and also still see a ton still in stores.

Sony's target audience are those who're too cool to pull out their toys.

[boyshine]

Almost no one knows about this system in my country. Pretty shocking considering it is one of the last sonyland territories in the world. Its a small market but Sony fucked up big time.

Same here (Norway, also a big PlayStation country).. „Vita? What is that? ..oh, the new PSP.. yeah, I don’t care” seems to be the tone. Extremely few pre-orders, noone waiting in line at launch, and completely dead from day 2. It’s the worst launch I’ve seen by far.

[HaRyu]

Really how and who?

Oh hell, I don't remember. And I don't want to slog through 208 thread pages to find it. :P

Basically, he noticed his bag was open, and his Vita and games were gone. He went and bought another Vita though.

[JVIDICAN]

I had mine delivered by amazon, but Near shows 49 people in my area. So there's that. :p

[DemonNite]

I wonder if we could use Near as a means of finding out how well it's selling lol

Central London in Near is packed... on friday it was about 600 from one location

[LuchaShaq]

250 seems fair to me for all the tech crammed into this thing. I really want to play with one first though. Anyone know if Best Buy has demo versions out?

Would agree with you if it had enough onboard storage for a bunch of saves and 1-2 downloadable titles.

That said outside of the demo unit at the local gamestop (which was removed in less than a week because some idiot broke a shoulder button probably on purpose since they seemed sturdy) I haven't seen one. I don't work in a game store but between work/working out/class/time on campus I usually see multiple dslites, a bunch of ipads, couple android tablets, infinity smart phones, and a 3ds/psp every other day. Still haven't seen a vita.

My observations mean shit though.

[Tiamant]

Very solid launch here in Spain. I work at the biggest Fnac (Barcelona) and we sold a fuckton of vitas the first day, half of them the 3G model to my surprise. My Near experience has gone from 6 Vitas the first day to 62 as today in a 1km radius, that has to count!

Then again this is Sonyland.

[dyergram]

I know three people who bought them but pretty sure that's because I was evangelising it so much....your welcome Sony.

[AranhaHunter]

Can they afford the price cut though.

If it was just Vita, yes, no problem, but, I think all their consoles/handhelds are due for a price drop this year. PS2's last price drop was two years ago, it's now pretty much dead in the US, Sony might want to get some last sales on it this Fall. As it can't cost them more than 70 bucks to ship one, they might drop the price on that to $79.99. Then there's PSP, it's pretty much dead, but some people might see some value in buying one for $99.99, getting a huge catalog of titles for cheap and CFW with amazing features nowadays, so a $30 drop on that. The PS3 just had a price drop 6 months ago, but it was a very insignificant price drop, if you ask me. They missed their FY forecast and January NPD was pretty pathetic. $50 price drop to $199.99.

It's not clear whether or not they make money on Vita HW yet, but at best they are breaking even, not enough room for a price drop there, whereas on all of the other ones, I believe they'll price drop and still make money on each HW sold.

As far as musings, I see Vitas available everywhere. Games as well. One interesting thing though, is that I noticed a lot of people going digital. Vita might get in a PC like situation where games don't do well in NPD/SalesAge, but do sell well. That will provide for some good arguments on NeoGaf.

"This game bombed"
"Well, you don't know if it sold well on PSN..."
"Ohh so now that's the excuse. No game will ever bomba because we won't get PSN numbers"

And so on. I'm looking forward to it.

[kinggroin]

At least 30 family members have it. Some people playing with it on the train.

[KorrZ]

Yes, because if it does so badly it needs an emergency price cut you better believe developers will have already begun to abandon ship.

Not necessarily, look at the 3DS. It had an emergency price cut and it's sales are skyrocketing now. I bought a 3DS at full price and I don't want to be stuck in another situation like that with such a drastic price cut.

I think its a realistic situation sadly. I think they made a huge mistake software wise. We see people on gaf rushed out and buying 5-9 titles at launch. They should have broken up the launch titles more. Next major title is in like April or May after MLB 12. They have a 3DS situation coming. Can they afford the price cut though.Wish they had MLB 12 at launch rather than Fifa though. Would have made a hell of alot more sense.

Good point, I'm not really sure what AAA hits they have coming up for the Vita in the future. Hopefully there's some good stuff shown at E3.

Same. $199 with 4G card and I'm there.

Yup. That's what I'm holding out for too. Perfect price point.

[Deepo]

I was in 9 different electronics stores and game specialists around Oslo, Norway today. Only one store had anything related to Vita. The others weren't sold out, they just hadn't bothered to stock it.

I've got my Vita and I absolutely love it, but Sony Norway seriously needs to get their shit together.

[mj1108]

Stores here seem to have Wifi and 3G units pretty readily available. I checked Best Buy, Target, Gamestop and Walmart. All had units in. Ah well...I got mine.

[Khalifa Jayy]

At least 30 family members have it. Some people playing with it on the train.

What? Lol.

[boyshine]

I was in 9 different electronics stores and game specialists around Oslo, Norway today. Only one store had anything related to Vita. The others weren't sold out, they just hadn't bothered to stock it. I've got my Vita and I absolutely love it, but Sony Norway seriously needs to get their shit together.

That sounds strange. Elkjøp Lørenskog probably had the best display I saw, but it’s not exactly hard to find consoles, games or accessories at Gamestop, Spaceworld, etc. The only thing that’s hard to find is the 16GB memory card.

[Squalltdx]

As far as musings, I see Vitas available everywhere. Games as well. One interesting thing though, is that I noticed a lot of people going digital. Vita might get in a PC like situation where games don't do well in NPD/SalesAge, but do sell well. That will provide for some good arguments on NeoGaf. "This game bombed" "Well, you don't know if it sold well on PSN..." "Ohh so now that's the excuse. No game will ever bomba because we won't get PSN numbers" And so on. I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to see how that's all going to play out here.

[darkside31337]

Well at least already 1000 people bought Rayman Origins in the US through PSN, so it's clearly like a 50/50 split between retail and digital sales.

[Darkmakaimura]

I went to gamestop looking for a demo unit... Apparently none of the 3 gamestops in my city have any demo units and the manager said they probably won't get one for "another year" because they weren't really trying to push sales for it. Gamestop.... True story.

I was in GameStop yesterday and they had a demo unit.

[TheDrowningMan]

It's going to be a soft launch, obviously; Indeed, I think it will have been a staggering success if Sony manage to sell close to half of the 3DS did in the west at its inception. It's a niche product, but one that can have plenty of appeal if Sony play their cards right as the year moves on (namely by remembering to package in a memory card, even a 4gb for a sub £200/$200 price point!). I think it'll be in a healthy position if common sense prevails on their part.

I really don't think it's been launched with the mass market in mind immediately, anyway. I just hope that it does well enough to maintain a solid level of third party support. If it goes on to sell 30m+ over the next five years I think it will.

[KillerMan91]

Same here (Norway, also a big PlayStation country).. „Vita? What is that? ..oh, the new PSP.. yeah, I don’t care” seems to be the tone. Extremely few pre-orders, noone waiting in line at launch, and completely dead from day 2. It’s the worst launch I’ve seen by far.

Well if Norway is anything like Finland handhelds are pretty much ignored anyways. Despite DS dominating pretty much whole earth here it wasn't amazingly big at least compared to home consoles. Pretty much same with Gameboy. Consoles for children to play Pokemon. Doesn't surprise me that Vita would have weak launch here.

[H_Prestige]

I must give Sony credit, they've pretty much improved on most the things people complained about with the PSP - the analogue nubs sucked: analogue sticks - one analogue is no good: dual analogue - the d-pad was mushy and sucky: awesome d-pad - load times: cartridges and they've added a whole load of other shit: two touch-interfaces, cameras etc

Vita has no better load times than any other console.

[kinggroin]

What? Lol.

never said MY family

[Father_Brain]

It's going to be a soft launch, obviously; Indeed, I think it will have been a staggering success if Sony manage to sell close to half of the 3DS did in the west at its inception. It's a niche product, but one that can have plenty of appeal if Sony play their cards right as the year moves on (namely by remembering to package in a memory card, even a 4gb for a sub £200/$200 price point!). I think it'll be in a healthy position if common sense prevails on their part. I really don't think it's been launched with the mass market in mind immediately, anyway. I just hope that it does well enough to maintain a solid level of third party support. If it goes on to sell 30m+ over the next five years I think it will.

If Nintendo's experience last spring/summer is any indication, a slow burn isn't going to cut it, particularly for a platform that's far more dependent on third-party support.

[Kyoufu]

Vita has no better load times than any other console.

It doesn't?

[Zulithe]

Went to Gamestop to pick up Tales of the Abyss and play some Gravity Rush on the Vita demo unit...

Heard more than 1 person say, "Vita? Never even heard of this thing..." And not in an interested sort of way.

When I left the demo unit I saw an asian guy talking with his GF over it, maybe trying to convince her to let him buy one? :)

Didn't see anyone buy one, but I did see brown boxes of new Vitas behind the register with white notes taped to them saying "3G" and "Wi-Fi." Both boxes were about half-empty.

I wanted to buy a new Vita game but nothing interests me until Gravity Rush comes out.

The demo is awesome BTW! Very responsive, not to mention beautiful.

[TheDrowningMan]

If Nintendo's experience last spring/summer is any indication, a slow burn isn't going to cut it, particularly for a platform that's far more dependent on third-party support.

I don't think it's quite the same. The 360 was a slow burner, same with the PS3 yet they attracted plenty. The 3DS will be hugely saturated with games, just like its predecessor, and the Vita, like the PSP, will get by with a decent amount of software in the long run. Ultimately, you may have a bigger potential audience on console x but when you're competing against hundreds and hundreds more games, it's not always the logical choice.

Nintendo had it all to lose because they are the thedominant force in the handheld market. The burden of expectation was on them and plenty of share holders wanted iOS software yesterday if they didn't come out of the blocks firing.

If it comes out and bombs completely for a year then yeah, okay, it's done. I just don't expect sales anywhere near 3DS level and I don't imagine Sony do, either. They're not stupid enough to fail to recognise that it's a niche product at the current price.

[TheDrowningMan]

It doesn't?

Nope!

[M-PG71C]

Pretty soft honestly. There's plenty of stock but no interest. Some places are downright embarrassing, Walmart being a fine example. I need to take a picture but they have one small row of Vita titles being mixed in with PS3 games. It's confusing and stupid.

Personally, I'm going to wait until more titles like Ys IV remake and Tales of Innocence R make it over here. Gravity Daze is the only one I would buy at the moment.

[BakedPigeon]

Went into a local game store and asked about the Vita. The guy said I was only the second customer since its launch to even ask about the handheld. They have not sold any.

At least 30 family members have it. Some people playing with it on the train.

wtf?

[Sean]

Is it bad that I wish it starts off poorly so it price drops quickly? I want one so bad t.t not for $250 though.

It's the pricing of the games that will be a bigger issue for the Vita imo. $50 for Uncharted, Sony is fucking crazy.

[thuway]

I honestly think it would have been better if they just named the damn thing PSP2 instead of Vita.

[Kazerei]

Stock of games and accessories is somewhat low around here. I don't know if it's because shipments were low, but at the two stores I went to the Vita racks were half empty. Normally the racks are overflowing. I went to one store to buy Lumines and it was sold out, so I had to go to another.

/anecdote