PS Vita final shipment is 17M as of March 2019 [OUTDATED]

[fiendcode]

Saturn was an atomic bomb in US and Europe.
Even with PS Vita it can't compete outside Japan.


SEGA Saturn shipment:

NA - 1,80M
EU - 1,00M
JP - 5,75M
OT - 0,53M

Total: 9,08M

PS Vita case with ROTW is similar to PS2.
Sony ship a lot of PS2 in small markets during PS3 lifecycle.

This give to Sony a big domination on those makets and help PS2 to beat NDS.

Because in Fact in major markets, NDS beat PS2 by more than 20M.

I didn't mean the exact same sales, just they're pretty close. A 600k-1m difference in the US isn't that different (both systems were atomic bombs here), especially when you consider Saturn had about half the lifecycle Vita did.

Global reach has always been a big advantage with PlayStation over rivals like Sega and Nintendo. PS2 vs DS is a great example of that but you can also still see it today with PS4 vs Switch to some extent.

 

[Kmds]

I didn't mean the exact same sales, just they're pretty close. A 600k-1m difference in the US isn't that different (both systems were atomic bombs here), especially when you consider Saturn had about half the lifecycle Vita did.

Global reach has always been a big advantage with PlayStation over rivals like Sega and Nintendo. PS2 vs DS is a great example of that but you can also still see it today with PS4 vs Switch to some extent.

Yep that's definitely true and we saw how it took a while for the Europe and 'Other' regions to reach the relative heights of success that the Switch got in Japan and North America.

 

[Aquamarine]

PS Vita is probably (among main consoles) the console with the lowest share of USA in it's sales.

Even Saturn who had a huge share of it's sales from Japan and bombed in the US is likely higher.

I believe Saturn final number in NPD is 1.4m based on a leak of a Wedbush report.

Outside of Japan Saturn was a tragedy of epic proportions.

Yes, the originally-reported USA NPD hardware numbers for Saturn were 1.3 million, but they were since adjusted upwards to 1.4 million over time.

The Virtual Boy (0.5 million), Saturn (1.4 million), and Vita (2.4 million) were the three worst-selling consoles of all time in the USA. SKUs like the Sega 32X (0.5 million) also sold horribly but they weren't standalone.

 

[awng782]

~170M total software sales with a 50% digital ratio (including digital-only software) suggests 80M+ software sold at retail. That still seems quite high to me.

To build off on this, I'm doubtful total PSV software sales in the North America have reached 15M given that hardware sales are <3M. We know that PSV software retail sales in Japan are <25M, so this means PSV software sales in Europe + ROTW must be at 50M+.

That seems very hard to believe.

 

[Astral_lion02]

To build off on this, I'm doubtful total PSV software sales in the North America have reached 15M given that hardware sales are <3M. We know that PSV software retail sales in Japan are <25M, so this means PSV software sales in Europe + ROTW must be at 50M+.

That seems very hard to believe.

thinking about it one possibility is that the 1:10 the person heard is specific to some FY in the second part of PS Vita life when Hardware was low.

Then 170M is wrong.

 

[Sky-X]

It's absolutely wild to see how close Sony came to doing something similar to the Switch with the Vita. The same Reddit thread talked about how Sony was experimenting with adding HDMI support to the Vita and that the Vita TV was apparantly spun off from the Vita Slim. They were thinking about adding Switch-like functionality years before Nintendo.

... They didn't

There is a big difference between an added functionality, and a basic concept

Both can do the same thing but the vision behind the product is massively different. The "Switch" concept goes from the name of the device itself, to every single design decision behind the platform

Don't underestimate this, the ability to envision such a product is far more challenging than doing the norm and expanding use cases.

 

[ggx2ac]

I was like, "Finally." When Jim Ryan said PS2 sold 160 million units.

But you make a good point that you don't expect someone to cite an exact number off the top of their head in conversation on a podcast.

However, there's always the possibility that Jim Ryan isn't rounding up to 160M units, he could be rounding down to 160M units.

I decided to look at that thread from 2018 in the old forum everyone keeps referencing to look at a post I had that said the following: https://www.resetera.com/threads/wh...between-159-2m-and-161-9m.77277/post-14297080


I've mentioned before that Sony's habits with posting sales numbers come from wanting "Good PR" statements rather than giving factual reporting. That's why when you go to their official website and look at the "BUSINESS DATA & SALES" page: https://sonyinteractive.com/en/our-company/business-data-sales/

You get the following footnote: "*Sales data on PlayStation®Vita are not disclosed"

So that was my speculation years ago on why Sony never celebrated giving a PR statement saying that PS2 reached a milestone of 160M units.

However, even I can't be certain of Sony's methods. See the following from their disclosed sales data:

Console	Cumulative Worldwide Hardware Unit Sales (Sell-in)
PSP® (PlayStation®Portable)	More than 76.4 million (As of March 31, 2012)
PlayStation®3	More than 87.4 million (As of March 31, 2017)

And this tweet from Shawn Layden in 2023:



Shawn Layden tweeted an image showing the back of a PSP engraved with the following: "In memory of PSP last production.
Production achievement
82,523,607 pcs
Period: 9 Nov. 2004 - 26 Sep. 2014"

Here, we have an instance of a Sony console achieving a milestone figure of more than 80 million units and yet the last reported sell-in was 76.4 million units. Why didn't they want to celebrate a milestone of 80 million units?

The last press release I could find where they mention that 76.4M units is from September 2012 when they announced price cuts for the PSP: https://sonyinteractive.com/jp/press-releases/2012/120919f/

Meanwhile, when the PS3 reached a milestone of 80M units in November 2013 shortly before the launch of the PS4 they gave a press release for that milestone: https://sonyinteractive.com/jp/press-releases/2013/131106-2/

What I'm pointing out is a possible contradiction to the idea that "PS2 didn't sell 160M units because Sony didn't do a milestone PR" because we have the PSP that reached more than 80M units and it didn't get a milestone PR and yet for some reason the PS3 got a milestone PR for that same number of 80M units (before the launch of the PS4). I don't know what the reason is for their inconsistency other than thinking that they can only make "Good PR statements", see below.

I don't know what the PS Vita HW sales numbers were between 2011 to 2014 so I can't be bothered speculating beyond the following: "PSP was outselling the PS Vita during those years which would have been Bad PR, they probably manufactured 6M PSP units over 30 months from their last reported sell-in numbers. The PS Vita is rumored to have barely outsold the Wii U's 13.56M units. That's why the PSP didn't get an 80M units milestone PR because it would have made the PS Vita look bad."

I'm quoting my own post here because of the tweet from Shawn Layden giving PSP HW numbers that wasn't revealed until September 2023 and the speculation that the PS Vita sold so bad that Sony didn't want to celebrate the 80M units milestone for the PSP else it would make the PS Vita look bad.

By giving the final PS2 numbers, Jim Rayan also give the final PS Vita number:

Cumulative worldwide sell-through of overall PlayStation hardware as of July 22 2018

• PlayStation®: 102.49M
• PlayStation®2: 160M
• PSP® (PlayStation®Portable): 82.52M
• PlayStation®Vita: 11.5M
• PlayStation®3: 87.4M
• PlayStation®4: 81.2M

Total give 525.11M while Sony give 525.3M in the PR so this is close enough.

Sony Interactive Entertainment Introduces “PlayStation®4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition”

August 9, 2018 – Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced that it will introduce a specially designed PlayStation®4 Pro (PS4™Pro) “PlayStation®4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition” (HDD 2TB) from August 24, 2018, and will be available at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of 49,980...

sonyinteractive.com

Given it's sell-trough and not sell-in and that PS Vita was not yet discountuned, PS Vita final number is slighty over that so the best number to kept would be ~12M (2M less than Wii U basicly).

And since PS Vita was the last hardware with missing LTD here we are:

Cumulative Worldwide Hardware Unit Sales (Sell-in)

• PlayStation®: 102.49M (As of March 31, 2012)
• PlayStation®2: 160M (As of March 31, 2013)
• PSP® (PlayStation®Portable): 82.52M (As of March 31, 2015)
• PlayStation®3: More than 87.4M (As of March 31, 2017)
• PlayStation®Vita: 12M (As of March 31, 2019)
• PlayStation®4: More than 117M (As of June 30, 2022)
• PlayStation®5: More than 51.8M (As of Dec 31, 2023)

Sony have sold more than 613M consoles as of Dec 31, 2023.

There's no need to complicate your life lol. We now officially know that :

Sony Interactive Entertainment Introduces “PlayStation®4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition”

August 9, 2018 – Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced that it will introduce a specially designed PlayStation®4 Pro (PS4™Pro) “PlayStation®4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition” (HDD 2TB) from August 24, 2018, and will be available at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of 49,980...

sonyinteractive.com

"With PlayStation® (PS) hardware sell through surpassing 525.3 million units worldwide".


So from this, if we base ourselves on the figures which are not up to date

Business Data & Sales

Sony Interactive Entertainment offers its business and sales information for those seeking to understand our sales wins.

sonyinteractive.com

it works out as follows:

PS1: 102.4M
PS2: 155M
PSP: 76.4M
PS3: 87.4M
PS4: 81.2M
----------------------------------------------------
Total: 502.40 million sold [as of July 22, 2018]

And that would put the PSVita at 22.9 million, which is of course impossible (it's not even certain that the Vita has done more than the Wii U : 13.56).

Now if you take the updated figures, it's obviously more logical and in line with the 525.3 million announced:

PS1: 102.49M (As of March 31, 2012)
PS2: 160M (As of March 31, 2013)
PSP: 82.5M (As of March 31, 2015)
PS3: 87.4M (As of March 31, 2017)
PS4: 81.2M (As of July 22, 2018)
----------------------------------------------------
Total: 513.59 million sold [as of July 22, 2018]

The PSVita ends up at 11.71 million, which is much more realistic and in line with its poor performance, which we already suspected at the time.

Now I'm quoting two posts that give different estimates for the PS Vita HW sales as of July 2018 or March 2019 ranging from 11.5M units to 12M units.

So did Sony manufacture another five or six million units of PS Vita before production had discontinued in March 2019?

Or is the thread title wrong now considering the new information that appeared since Shawn Layden revealing the PSP total units manufactured in September 2023?

 

[Astral_lion02]

Or is the thread title wrong now considering the new information that appeared since Shawn Layden revealing the PSP total units manufactured in September 2023?

The thread is outdated.

The most reliable number for PS Vita is around 12M.

The source was just wrong.

 

[Evilms]

As underlined by @Astral_lion02

Now that we have new elements with the PSP and the PS2, we can more easily determine the estimates for the Vita and know that it couldn't have been more than 12 million at that time (as of July 2018).

But how many Sony produced between August 2018 and March 2019, We'll have to wait to find out.

 

[fiendcode]

It's also worth mentioning only Asia production still existed at that point. Western production ceased in March 2018 according to 3rd party publishers (SIEA/SIEE never made public announcements).

 

[ggx2ac]

But how many Sony produced between August 2018 and March 2019, We'll have to wait to find out.

Sony is taking those numbers to the grave and we're not going to get the real figure from a "former Sony Employee AMA" which this thread was based on.

It's also worth mentioning only Asia production still existed at that point. Western production ceased in March 2018 according to 3rd party publishers (SIEA/SIEE never made public announcements).

Then I would estimate that Sony probably didn't manufacture more than 250k PS Vita units for the Asia region in the last year of its life.

I already did a quick calculation earlier that PS Vita approximately would have shipped an average of 1.7M units each year from its 2011 launch to mid-2018.

Of course product lifecycles don't work like that, the majority of production most likely happened between 2011 to 2014 and then shipments got smaller each year from then on.

PS Vita did not have a Gameboy-like revival with a smash hit like Pokémon, and it did not have a PS2-like revival by being discounted to $99 and being newly released in regions of the Global South.

So it's safe to estimate that PS Vita did not go further than a couple of hundred thousand units in the last year that it was being manufactured.

 

[Djehuty]

so it was a bigger flop than the wii u, crazzy

 

[Tbone5189]

so it was a bigger flop than the wii u, crazzy

THEY BOTh failed hard for different reasons, the only thing in my head was how the hell did vita sell 17mil, like where the hell did all these extra units come from. 12mil vs 17mil is almost being off by 50%.

WiiU was ahead but barely instead of what we thought. Vuta outsold WiiU in Japan by over 2mil and Europe. NA was the biggest contributor for wiiu, vita did only 2mil+ in the US

 

[ggx2ac]

so it was a bigger flop than the wii u, crazzy

It completely changes the narrative of last gen. We've had these assumptions that Wii U was the worst selling console of last generation but it turns out that the PS Vita was the worst selling console of last generation and Sony controlled that narrative by not disclosing the sales numbers of the PS Vita while Nintendo factually reported their Wii U numbers.

 

[Celine]

I've missed at the time the graph below, Sony had to write-off PS Vita components (and others) for about ¥17.2Bn in FY14 (ending March 2015):

 

[Phenom08]

So now the Vita is being sacrificed to boost PS2 lol.

 

[Evilms]

So now the Vita is being sacrificed to boost PS2 lol.

 

[Phenom08]

I'm sure you'll move the goalpost again down to 10 million for Vita, to adjust PS2 up to 161.9 million. Now tell me I'm wrong!

 

[Mory Dunz]

It completely changes the narrative of last gen. We've had these assumptions that Wii U was the worst selling console of last generation but it turns out that the PS Vita was the worst selling console of last generation and Sony controlled that narrative by not disclosing the sales numbers of the PS Vita while Nintendo factually reported their Wii U numbers.

What, not at all. Except fot maybe twitter talk

 

[awng782]

"The PS2 and PS Vita has sold 172 million units combined"

 

[Kresnik]

Enough.

If anyone wants to add any further analysis feel free, but we don't need this to turn into meme posting responses.

 

[Djehuty]

Enough.

If anyone wants to add any further analysis feel free, but we don't need this to turn into meme posting responses.

Memes reflect absurdity.

This situation is absurd, I think it’s fitting.

Truly the game console of all time.

 

[AuroraMusisAmica]

Vita and Wii U folks need to put aside their differences and understand what unites them:

That unlike the Switch, they actually got Madden and Call of Duty games.

 

[Danny]

It completely changes the narrative of last gen. We've had these assumptions that Wii U was the worst selling console of last generation but it turns out that the PS Vita was the worst selling console of last generation and Sony controlled that narrative by not disclosing the sales numbers of the PS Vita while Nintendo factually reported their Wii U numbers.

I mean the Vita was not vital to Sony compared to their home consoles, while the Wii U was much more important for Nintendo than the Vita was for Sony. So it would never be able to overshadow the Wii U bomb in any way.

 

[Phenom08]

I mean the Vita was not vital to Sony compared to their home consoles, while the Wii U was much more important for Nintendo than the Vita was for Sony. So it would never be able to overshadow the Wii U bomb in any way.

Lmao, no. What complete nonsense and just another excuse to defend Sony. Nintendo home consoles are so important to Nintendo that they don't bother pushing their most consistent releasing tent pole franchise (Pokemon) on their home consoles? Both home consoles and portable consoles are important to Nintendo along with Sony didn't create Vita just to bomb lol.

 

[Aostia82]

Take my similar post in the PS2 thread, change PS2 and Switch with Vita and Wii U, change "great" with "terrible" and "best" with "worst" and there you have it

 

[MegaXZero]

I'm sure you'll move the goalpost again down to 10 million for Vita, to adjust PS2 up to 161.9 million. Now tell me I'm wrong!

Let’s not do this.

 

[Djehuty]

I mean the Vita was not vital to Sony compared to their home consoles, while the Wii U was much more important for Nintendo than the Vita was for Sony. So it would never be able to overshadow the Wii U bomb in any way.

nah the vita was the worse bomb, sony just stopped making handhelds.

Post automatically merged: Mar 31, 2024

It completely changes the narrative of last gen. We've had these assumptions that Wii U was the worst selling console of last generation but it turns out that the PS Vita was the worst selling console of last generation and Sony controlled that narrative by not disclosing the sales numbers of the PS Vita while Nintendo factually reported their Wii U numbers.

thats just a console war thing, imma be real no one really cares outside of forums about either of these 2 consoles.

 

[Mekanos]

Sony had multiple self-inflicted own goals with the Vita, but ultimately the crumbling of the dedicated handheld market was the ultimate cause, I think. I suppose a better console would have sold marginally better but I don't think much would change. We wouldn't be looking at a third portable Sony system, either way.

 

[Lelouch0612]

Lmao, no. What complete nonsense and just another excuse to defend Sony.

How can you believe one second that this is a decent way to engage with someone?

You can make your point without mocking and accusing other members.

 

[fiendcode]

I mean the Vita was not vital to Sony compared to their home consoles, while the Wii U was much more important for Nintendo than the Vita was for Sony. So it would never be able to overshadow the Wii U bomb in any way.

One key difference though; Sony abandoned the handheld market while Nintendo still serves the home market with a hybrid device. You can claim Vita's less vital to Sony but it's a complete market lost while Nintendo adjusted and still thrived in the same space.

 

[PS2]

It's also worth mentioning only Asia production still existed at that point. Western production ceased in March 2018 according to 3rd party publishers (SIEA/SIEE never made public announcements).

Can you post the receipts? And I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, either way.
SIEA and SIEE almost never make those announcements; we knew about PS3's discontinuation in NA in October 2016 thanks to Kotaku, IIRC.

 

[fiendcode]

Can you post the receipts? And I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, either way.
SIEA and SIEE almost never make those announcements; we knew about PS3's discontinuation in NA in October 2016 thanks to Kotaku, IIRC.

Ah, sorry, it was FY2018 but I forgot that means March 2019 for Sony. (ugh)

Outlets reported on it too. Final submissions in June 2018 and final orders by Feb 2019.

Sony Is Ending Production Of Physical PS Vita Games In America And Europe By March 2019

www.siliconera.com

 

[AViewtifulMind]

I must say that the original post of this thread was sketchy.

The first source is a former disgruntled Sony employee who reports on hearsay. The second source is a Microsoft court document from a case where Microsoft repeatedly did their best to lowball their own position and highball Sony's position with the intent of getting in a more favorable position for their planned acquisition.

The question that comes immediately to mind is how would Microsoft know Sony's exact installed base when Sony themselves did not provide public information of their shipments for all of their consoles? Surely, Microsoft would have to be working with estimates in that case. But apparently these estimates coincidentally lined up with the claim of the former Sony employee, so at one point in time this made sense.

Then again, there should be a thread here that has Vita sell-through in ten major markets up until the end of 2020 and they totaled to something like ~11.5m; I came across it just last week which reminded me that this place exists. This means that for 17m globally, the Vita's smaller markets would have accounted for a huge ~5.5m by the end of the system's life. But for 12m globally, these same markets would have to be under 1m. This is something I have to look into again tomorrow, so for now, treat this post as nothing more than some pondering on my part instead of an actual argument.

 

[Astral_lion02]

Then again, there should be a thread here that has Vita sell-through in ten major markets up until the end of 2020 and they totaled to something like ~11.5m; I came across it just last week which reminded me that this place exists. This means that for 17m globally, the Vita's smaller markets would have accounted for a huge ~5.5m by the end of the system's life. But for 12m globally, these same markets would have to be under 1m. This is something I have to look into again tomorrow, so for now, treat this post as nothing more than some pondering on my part instead of an actual argument.

The source that give sell-trough by country (CESA) claim that PS Vita WW LTD is 16M witch is again off.

There is an issue with CESA numbers for mainland europe numbers anyways.
Theirs data show inacuracy compared to others reliable sources like GfK.

The only numbers we can use from them are for USA, Canada and UK (excluding 2022 for UK).

 

[AViewtifulMind]

The source that give sell-trough by country (CESA) claim that PS Vita WW LTD is 16M witch is again off.

There is an issue with CESA numbers for mainland europe numbers anyways.
Theirs data show inacuracy compared to others reliable sources like GfK.

The only numbers we can use from them are for USA, Canada and UK (excluding 2022 for UK).

Okay, I see. Yes, I'd doubt a figure of 16m worldwide almost just the same as the even higher 17m, because the two biggest countries (Japan and the USA) that contribute combine for only ~8.5m.

Good thing I postponed my research, because knowing about inaccuracies beforehand saves me a lot of time now. With so few reliable pieces of sales data for the Vita, any conclusion for global sales is bound to be a rather rough estimate. No wonder that there's so little about this even here on Install Base where the most competent data crunchers reside. There's just no way to really know.

 

[P.Scoop]

I always personally thought there's no way the Vita is selling more than the Wii U. It has worse hardware sales, no multiple system sellers, lot of bad hardware designs. And in general a much less desired product. Even with the Wii U, there were exclusive games (as in, multiple titles) worth buying the system for.

So to see the closest possible number is slightly below Wii U vindicated me lol.

 

[Kresnik]

Okay, I see. Yes, I'd doubt a figure of 16m worldwide almost just the same as the even higher 17m, because the two biggest countries (Japan and the USA) that contribute combine for only ~8.5m.

Good thing I postponed my research, because knowing about inaccuracies beforehand saves me a lot of time now. With so few reliable pieces of sales data for the Vita, any conclusion for global sales is bound to be a rather rough estimate. No wonder that there's so little about this even here on Install Base where the most competent data crunchers reside. There's just no way to really know.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, when I combined all the 'sources' I could find for Vita sales (Media Create tracked data, NPD leaked numbers, various reports such as 100k in UK by May 2012 and 600k LT in Spain) I got to about 10.5m. There's bound to be some issues with the data (for example, Nintendo provided 1,164,000 for European sales for 2012, from which I subtracted all known numbers but this will cause some obvious errors).

The data is missing things like: any NA outside of US (also missing most data in the US from March 2015 onwards); anything from Australasia; anything from markets like South America, Asia (outside of Japan); any sales from outside the big European markets (I have a lot of data from UK/Germany/France/Spain but little for the others).

So while it doesn't help enormously, if you take say, 10m as a baseline then think what the missing markets would have sold, I personally think 1.5m is too low (there's nothing from SEA for example outside of Taiwain in 2018, where we have it at 2k - similar to what was sold in Germany in 2018, but German market as a whole was ~400k LT).

But I also think 17m is way too high for these remaining markets.

I've always believed it's in the same ballpark as, perhaps slightly lower than, Wii-U.

Without an official report or Shawn Layden-style engraved console though, I don't think we have any way of knowing. Perhaps Gio Corsi will get a commemorative console one day which will help us figure it out.

 

[Cocodor]

12M is way closer to sales trajectory and what people expected in the first place yeah.

 

[AViewtifulMind]

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, when I combined all the 'sources' I could find for Vita sales (Media Create tracked data, NPD leaked numbers, various reports such as 100k in UK by May 2012 and 600k LT in Spain) I got to about 10.5m. There's bound to be some issues with the data (for example, Nintendo provided 1,164,000 for European sales for 2012, from which I subtracted all known numbers but this will cause some obvious errors).

The data is missing things like: any NA outside of US (also missing most data in the US from March 2015 onwards); anything from Australasia; anything from markets like South America, Asia (outside of Japan); any sales from outside the big European markets (I have a lot of data from UK/Germany/France/Spain but little for the others).

So while it doesn't help enormously, if you take say, 10m as a baseline then think what the missing markets would have sold, I personally think 1.5m is too low (there's nothing from SEA for example outside of Taiwain in 2018, where we have it at 2k - similar to what was sold in Germany in 2018, but German market as a whole was ~400k LT).

But I also think 17m is way too high for these remaining markets.

I've always believed it's in the same ballpark as, perhaps slightly lower than, Wii-U.

Without an official report or Shawn Layden-style engraved console though, I don't think we have any way of knowing. Perhaps Gio Corsi will get a commemorative console one day which will help us figure it out.

I agree. I don't think going from one extreme (17m) to another (12m) on a whim makes sense when there's no new hard data we have to work with.

Just like we should stick with a range of around 3m for a final PS2 lifetime sales estimate, we should use a range for Vita lifetime sales as well. Something like 12.0-14.0m, because the odds that LT sales fall outside of this range are low based on the actual sales data we do have. Or to say this in a different way, I wouldn't make a definitive call on whether or not the Vita sold more or less than the Wii U.

 

[Aostia82]

I agree. I don't think going from one extreme (17m) to another (12m) on a whim makes sense when there's no new hard data we have to work with.

Just like we should stick with a range of around 3m for a final PS2 lifetime sales estimate, we should use a range for Vita lifetime sales as well. Something like 12.0-14.0m, because the odds that LT sales fall outside of this range are low based on the actual sales data we do have. Or to say this in a different way, I wouldn't make a definitive call on whether or not the Vita sold more or less than the Wii U.

I agree, apart the last sentence
we know Wii U's numbers and are higher that your range

 

[AViewtifulMind]

I agree, apart the last sentence
we know Wii U's numbers and are higher that your range

Wii U's final figure is 13.56m.

 

[johanto21]

On the topic of WiiU vs Vita, I think it's a much more complex scenario than simply looking at hardware sales.
On one hand, the PSVita had very high digital attach rates, which is more $ per software sold both for the 3rd party and Sony.
On the other hand, WiiU's software sales were mostly 1st party, with some games selling a lot (MK8 at more than 8 million units sold probably gave Nintendo more benefits than every single 1st party Sony released game on PSVita combined).

And that's limiting the analysis to those platforms in isolation. If we also take into account how well each company has been able to recycle their projects on those failed consoles, then there's no contest:
Nintendo has turned some of those WiiU games into the best selling ones of their franchises with the help of the Switch. So MK8, Zelda: BOTW and tons of games originally developed for the WiiU saw huge success afterwards.
The same cannot be said for Sony's PSVita output: The Uncharted game has never been re-launched, Gravity Rush was a flop and a flop remained.... so yeah, if we take EVERYTHING into account and how Nintendo has been able to re-sell tons of WiiU software for hefty profits on the Switch then we can even consider the WiiU a successful venture XD

 

[aktoner]

On the topic of WiiU vs Vita, I think it's a much more complex scenario than simply looking at hardware sales.
On one hand, the PSVita had very high digital attach rates, which is more $ per software sold both for the 3rd party and Sony.
On the other hand, WiiU's software sales were mostly 1st party, with some games selling a lot (MK8 at more than 8 million units sold probably gave Nintendo more benefits than every single 1st party Sony released game on PSVita combined).

And that's limiting the analysis to those platforms in isolation. If we also take into account how well each company has been able to recycle their projects on those failed consoles, then there's no contest:
Nintendo has turned some of those WiiU games into the best selling ones of their franchises with the help of the Switch. So MK8, Zelda: BOTW and tons of games originally developed for the WiiU saw huge success afterwards.
The same cannot be said for Sony's PSVita output: The Uncharted game has never been re-launched, Gravity Rush was a flop and a flop remained.... so yeah, if we take EVERYTHING into account and how Nintendo has been able to re-sell tons of WiiU software for hefty profits on the Switch then we can even consider the WiiU a successful venture XD

It's hard to understand how the Wii U didn't sell a lot more with the proven mega sellers you listed. Is portability that important?

On the other hand Sony could port the best of Vita first party to PS4/5 and at best they'd be PS Plus Premium classics fodder. Killzone Mercenaries, Resistance Retribution, Uncharted Golden Abyss etc I'd probably replay them if they came free with my subscription that's about it.

 

[BTB123]

It's hard to understand how the Wii U didn't sell a lot more with the proven mega sellers you listed. Is portability that important?

Not really. The hardware itself was terrible and unappealing, the marketing was very bad, the reveal unfocused and confusing, the launch lineup was extremely weak, the release cadence was terrible with long droughts. There just weren't enough of these great games released and some of those that were were garbage games like Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash and Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival. Many franchises that the Wii had gotten just weren't there and others either didn't do enough new things, like NSMBU, or were a clear step down in quality (even if still very good), like SM3DW.

 

[RennanNT]

It's hard to understand how the Wii U didn't sell a lot more with the proven mega sellers you listed. Is portability that important?

Their first big system seller was NSMBU, their second was Mario 3D World, 1 year later. Between those there was half a year without releases, and Pikmin 3 + Wind Waker HD, on the other half.

To make it worse, the vast majority of big games the Wii U got had a 3DS entry from that series before it (NSMB2, 3D Land, OoT3D, MK7, Smash, etc). And then 3DS got Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, 2D Zelda and more on top of it.

Nintendo handhelds have outsold the home console counterpart for 3 decades straights, so being portable, cheaper and having better 3rd party support certainly counted in 3DS favor. But the 3DS was clearly the platform to own if you wanted to play Nintendo games and the Wii U was there if you wanted even more or strongly prefer playing on a TV.

 

[aktoner]

Their first big system seller was NSMBU, their second was Mario 3D World, 1 year later. Between those there was half a year without releases, and Pikmin 3 + Wind Waker HD, on the other half.

To make it worse, the vast majority of big games the Wii U got had a 3DS entry from that series before it (NSMB2, 3D Land, OoT3D, MK7, Smash, etc). And then 3DS got Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, 2D Zelda and more on top of it.

Nintendo handhelds have outsold the home console counterpart for 3 decades straights, so being portable, cheaper and having better 3rd party support certainly counted in 3DS favor. But the 3DS was clearly the platform to own if you wanted to play Nintendo games and the Wii U was there if you wanted even more or strongly prefer playing on a TV.

And now the switch is both which is why it's breaking records.

 

[johanto21]

It's hard to understand how the Wii U didn't sell a lot more with the proven mega sellers you listed. Is portability that important?

On the other hand Sony could port the best of Vita first party to PS4/5 and at best they'd be PS Plus Premium classics fodder. Killzone Mercenaries, Resistance Retribution, Uncharted Golden Abyss etc I'd probably replay them if they came free with my subscription that's about it.

It's a matter of the buyer's perception. The WiiU launch campaign was such a disaster that made most of the hardcore audience to not look back at the console, and it's novelty was harder to understand for the casual audience than what the Switch offers. The fact that some launch games ran worse than it's 360/PS3 counterparts only made matters worse.

I really enjoyed the concept and ZombiU has been one of the best experiences I've had with a launch title thanks to how it implemented the gamepad to enhance the experience and how surprisingly tight it's gameplay was but unfortunately most of the buyers didn't value that proposition unlike Switch's concept that was excellently well received.

Regards!

 

[Celine]

thinking about it one possibility is that the 1:10 the person heard is specific to some FY in the second part of PS Vita life when Hardware was low.

Then 170M is wrong.

The other thing to consider is the "mega pack" initiatives (several games bundled together with the hardware purchase or in one cheap software offering).

 

[Astral_lion02]

Dedice to make a better sumarry of what we have currently for PS Vita:

First using as a base what @Kresnik aleready do, this is what we have as for PS Vita Sell-through by territories:

ASIA [MEDIA CREATE]

JAPAN

YEAR	SALES
2011	439.986
2012	690.839
2013	1.224.532
2014	1.168.570
2015	1.069.471
2016	849.669
2017	344.813
2018	177.720
2019	28.968
TOTAL	5.994.568

TAIWAN

YEAR	SALES
2018	2.271
2019	170
TOTAL	2.441

NORTH AMERICA [NPD]

USA

YEAR	SALES
2012	1.281.000
2013	496.000
2014	323.000
2015	278.000
2016	63.000
TOTAL	2.441.000

*based on CESA data and leak

CANADA

YEAR	SALES
2012	120.000
2013	60.000
2014	40.000
2015	30.000
2016	10.000
TOTAL	260.000

*use CESA data

EUROPE

UK [GfK/CHART-TRACK]

YEAR	SALES
2012	310.000
2013	180.000
2014	170.000
2015	60.000
2016	20.000
TOTAL	740.000

*use CESA data

FRANCE [GfK]

YEAR	SALES
2012	201.000
2013	129.000
2014	116.000
2015	61.000
2016	28.000
TOTAL	535.000

(PS TV is not include, around 40k PS TV were sold in 2014)

Spoiler: FRANCE CALCULATIONS

PS Vita sales in France can be found by doing calculation with what SELL report:

NINTENDO 3DS + PS VITA [SELL]

YEAR	SALES
2013	1.071.000
2014	848.000
2015	747.000
2016	725.000

NINTENDO 3DS [NINTENDO]

YEAR	SALES
2011	761.000
2012	947.000
2013	942.000
2014	732.000
2015	686.000
2016	697.000
TOTAL	4.765.000

Nintendo France report a total of 535.000 for PS Vita as of late 2016.

I think that Playstation TV was Tracked seperatly to Playstation Vita as an TV console from GEN 7 (that's due to calculation with GEN 7 numbers and given what they do with Switch lite, ):

TV HARDWARE (GEN 7) (rounded to nearst 10k)

	2014	2015	YoY
PS3	240.000	80.000	-66%
360	80.000	30.000	-62%
WII	10.000	-	-
OTH	-	10.000	-
PS TV	40.000	-	-
TOTAL [SELL]	360.000	120.000	-66%

OTH = NVIDIA SHIELD TV (released in 2015) + OTHERS RETRO HARDWARE THAN NES MINI
They sold 11k before 2016 according to SELL

Wii was at 6.161.000 as late 2012, sold 125.000 in 2013 and end at 6.293.000

SPAIN [GfK]

YEAR	SALES
2015	64.000
2016	21.000
TOTAL	85.000

Then we have the 600.000 number as June 2015 for Spain.

To give an idea of PS Vita yearly sales before 2015, I have this for all handhelds from 2012 to 2016:

TOTAL HANDHELDS SALES IN SPAIN [GfK]

YEAR	SALES
2012	715.000
2013	481.000
2014	354.000
2015	362.000
2016	378.000
TOTAL*	2.288.000

*2012-2016

For others european places CESA have yearly numbers but they are not reliable so it's not shown here.

OTHERS FIGURES:

• PS Vita sold 21.096 for first month in China.
• We have 400k for Germany but it's not reliable, the source show Vgcharz numbers, however we have a figure of 200.000 as of september 2013

Nintendo show these graphs for 2012 hardware sales in europe:

An extrapontion from Nintendo data give 1.16M for PS Vita in Europe in 2012.
This graphs also show how VITA perform across markets for it's first year.

___

The numbers above basicly confirm that PS Vita sold more than 10M WW.
So we have at least that as a lock.

Another way to confirm the 10M number is by looking at what Sony officialy provide:

PSP Hardware Sales in:

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	FY	LTD
FY2006	1,4	2,0	4,7	1,5	9,6	23,8
FY2007	2,1	2,5	5,7	3,5	13,8	37,6
FY2008	3,7	3,2	5,1	2,1	14,1	51,7
FY2009	1,3	3,0	4,2	1,4	9,9	61,6
FY2010	1,2	1,5	3,6	1,7	8,0	69,6
FY2011	1,8	1,7	2,4	0,9	6,8	76,4

PSP+PS VITA Hardware Sell in:

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	FY	LTD
FY2012	1,4	1,6	2,7	1,3	7,0	85,2
FY2013	0,6	0,8	2,0	0,7	4,1	89,3
FY2014	0,75	0,7	1,4	0,45	3,3	92,6

PSV+PSP combined sell-in reach 92.6M as of March 2015. If we substrack to that the known LTD of PSP (82.523.607) it give 10.1M for PS Vita.

PSP number is production only and not Sell-in but I doubt Sell-in is enough bellow the reavealed to change much given the cost of unshipped consoles and the fact that negative shipments if they happened are only very tiny amont looking at Nintendo data.

So we can state "around 10M" for PS Vita sell-in as March 2015.

Then for the final number it's harder:

By giving the final PS2 numbers, Jim Rayan also give the final PS Vita number:

Cumulative worldwide sell-through of overall PlayStation hardware as of July 22 2018

• PlayStation®: 102.49M
• PlayStation®2: 160M
• PSP® (PlayStation®Portable): 82.52M
• PlayStation®Vita: 11.5M
• PlayStation®3: 87.4M
• PlayStation®4: 81.2M

Total give 525.11M while Sony give 525.3M in the PR so this is close enough.

Sony Interactive Entertainment Introduces “PlayStation®4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition”

August 9, 2018 – Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced that it will introduce a specially designed PlayStation®4 Pro (PS4™Pro) “PlayStation®4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition” (HDD 2TB) from August 24, 2018, and will be available at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of 49,980...

sonyinteractive.com

Given it's sell-trough and not sell-in and that PS Vita was not yet discountuned, PS Vita final number is slighty over that so the best number to kept would be ~12M (2M less than Wii U basicly).

And since PS Vita was the last hardware with missing LTD here we are:

Cumulative Worldwide Hardware Unit Sales (estimate)

• PlayStation®: 102.49M (As of March 31, 2012)
• PlayStation®2: 160M (As of March 31, 2013)
• PSP® (PlayStation®Portable): 82.52M (As of March 31, 2015)
• PlayStation®3: More than 87.4M (As of March 31, 2017)
• PlayStation®Vita: 12M (As of March 31, 2019)
• PlayStation®4: More than 117M (As of June 30, 2022)
• PlayStation®5: More than 51.8M (As of Dec 31, 2023)

Sony have sold more than 613M consoles as of Dec 31, 2023.

I made an estimate here that give 12M based on Sony 500M PR, what IS known for others consoles.
Problem is that PS2 number of 160M does not reach consensus and data are mixing Sell-in and Sell-through.

Maybe the sell-through of PS3 used by Sony was bellow 87.4M at this moment too and also it's not really definitive as PS Vita was still in production in 2018 and thereforce still selling in the ASIA region.

The 17M number from OP looks too high with all these data, but 12M could be also too low.