PSP World

Sony May Quickly Drop PS Vita Price After Launch

The Sony PS Vita is set to launch at a premium price when it ships in the U.S. and U.K. in February 2012. Based on the sales trends in Japan though, it may make sense for them to quickly drop the price shortly after launch.

The Sony PS Vita will come in two varieties when it releases this coming February.

The Wi-Fi only version will ship with a price tag of $250, while the 3G enabled version will come with a price tag of $300.

The Sony PS Vita launched in Japan roughly 10-days ago, and initially had some fantastic sales, raking in sales of over 300,000 units in just the first two days.

That may seem great for Sony, but after that, it only managed to sell another 72,000 units over the course of the rest of the launch week.

What this shows is that the hardcore, early-adopters were eager to pick up the console on launch day. Beyond that core group though, the interest to pick up the Sony PS Vita was simply not there at that price point.

The original Sony PSP even outsold the Sony PS Vita over that same one-week period leading up to Christmas.

This could mean that Sony may quickly drop the price of the Sony PS Vita, likely 2 or 3 months after it launches in the U.S.

The price drop would likely come at E3 2011, which would gear up the Sony PS Vita to be a more mainstream handheld heading into the next holiday shopping season.

Nintendo had to make a similar move with the Nintendo 3DS when the handheld failed to sell at its initial $270 price point, and Sony will most likely follow-suit with a similar pattern.

It just does not appear the mainstream interest is there for a dedicated gaming handheld at that price point, especially with competition such as the Apple iPad, and iPhone.