Despite difficulties, PlayStation Vita is nearly meeting Sony expectations

Judging from its low sales numbers and lagging third party support, it's easy to assume that Sony's PlayStation Vita is in trouble. The platform has yet to show signs of taking off, but Sony president Kaz Hirai says that despite its difficulties, the handheld is still more or less meeting company expectations. "Worldwide, the Vita is pretty much along where we would expect it to be, maybe trending behind in certain territories," the executive told Reuters. He did not clarify exactly where Vita sales were falling behind. Hirai likened the Vita's situation to the early days of the PlayStation 3, noting that while the console got off to a slow start, it eventually grew into a viable and financially successful platform. "Back in 2006-2007 people were saying PlayStation 3 is not happening, it's dead, but today it's a great platform, contributes bottom line to us. You need to look back 5, 10 years for these platforms to tell whether they are successful," Hirai said. Since its launch in Japan late last year, the PlayStation Vita has sold roughly 1 million units worldwide, with 400,000 of those sales coming from the company's most recent fiscal quarter. For comparison, by roughly this same point in the Nintendo 3DS' lifespan, the handheld had sold more than 6 million units worldwide.