With the Playstation Vita launching in North America and Europe tomorrow, IndustryGamers recently reported that several Japanese developers are abandoning their projects intended for the handheld, and switching towards projects for the Nintendo 3DS.
The report quotes an unnamed source as having said that “major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS.” Supposedly, this is a result of declining Vita sales in Japan. No specific studios were named by the source. According to reports, around 500,000 Vitas were sold in the first three weeks on the market in Japan, and dropped steeply after that. By comparison, the same number of Nintendo 3DS were sold in around two weeks time after launch.
Scott Rohde, the Vice President for Sony’s worldwide studios, has stated that these claims are largely exaggerated, as he knows “many, many, many third party developers and publishers are feverishly working on Vita titles, not just for now, but for the foreseeable future.”
‘No biggie’ let ’em go off and kiss Nintendo’s butt, when the Vita starts to really sell well, they’ll be the ones to lose out.