Speaking with GameStop at the CES event in Las Vegas, Sony director of hardware marketing John Koller commented on the downward turn in sales figures in the first few weeks of the PS Vita's release.

He explained that, despite concerns, the new handheld is currently selling 'to forecast.'

After its Japanese 17 December release, the PS Vita sold almost 325,000 units. That figure fell down to 72,500 units in its second week and down again to under 43,000 units in the third week.

Koller, however, cites difficulties encountered with shipping, before highlighting the promise of more content in the months ahead.

Early days

"If you look at the word-of-mouth factor, it's really strong because people are bringing it home and really enjoying it," said Koller.

"That satisfaction rate is really high. But also in terms of when we funnel in additional hardware units, that'll dictate how many sales there are and how many sell through.

"We're still in the first couple weeks, and we're trying to get as many units into market as possible. We're going to give it some time, but overall those numbers have been to forecast."

Anything you can do...

Koller also took the opportunity to allude to the dodgy period Nintendo went through with the 3DS.

"What we really wanted to do, and I think we learned from past, most recent, handheld device launches, is that you don't want to launch strongly and then go dark for three or four months and have nothing," he said.

"So in subsequent months for Vita, we have launch, then we have MLB, then we got Mortal Kombat, then Resistance, then Little Big Planet, then Call of Duty, and Assassin's Creed."

PS Vita launches in North America and Europe on 22 February.

[source: GameSpot]