Japanese Vita Sales Reach Lowest Point Ever

For the fifth week in a row, Sony's PlayStation Vita has seen a massive jump in sales, reaching a new high of— oh, no, wait a minute. I'm definitely holding this chart upside down. There we go.

Yep, another batch of Media Create sales figures, another helping of terrible news for Sony. During the week of January 6 through 22, the Vita moved just 15,219 units, representing a 32% drop over last week and the system's worst sales performance to date.

Per usual, the Vita was bested by the 3DS, PS3, and PSP, with Nintendo's rival handheld taking the top spot by a huge margin. The 3DS moved an impressive 80,960 systems, down 20% over last week but still more than every other system combined.

As I've noted in the past, the disparity in performance is probably best attributed to the Vita's weak software lineup. Nintendo regularly dominates the top 20 — 3DS games held the top four spots this week — while the Vita hasn't had a single game chart since the week of its release.

Unfortunately for Sony, the Vita's Japanese release schedule is alarmingly thin at the moment, with only a few titles hitting between now and February, and everything after dated TBA. At this stage, Sony will be banking heavily on the system's February 22 Western launch to make up much of the ground they've already lost in Japan.