Sluggish gaming sales force Sony to reduce Vita sales target by 25 percent

Sony was forced to rein in their PlayStation Vita and PSP hardware annual sales targets following lackluster results posted for their first fiscal quarter.  As losses widened both company-wide and for the division encompassing the PlayStation business, Sony confirms it will reduce its combined Vita and PSP hardware sales target to 12 million units for their current fiscal year ending next March 2013, down nearly 25 percent from its original 16 million unit target reported back in May.

Sales from Sony's gaming division fell 14.5 percent year-on-year to ¥118.0 billion ($1.5 billion USD) during the three month period ended June 30th, leaving the division mired in operating losses of ¥3.5 billion ($44.7 million USD).  Compare this to the ¥4.1 billion ($52.3 million USD) in income the division posted for the same quarter last year.

Sony sold 1.4 million Vita and PSP handhelds combined during their first fiscal quarter, down from the combined 1.8 million handhelds they managed to sell last year.  Since the company has now taken to combining their hardware unit sales for the purposes of reporting, it's not known exactly how much the Vita accounted for the current total.  Combined PS3 and PS2 hardware sales similarly fell year-on-year to 2.8 million units.

Vita and PSP software sales hit 5.8 million units this past quarter, while the combined PS3 and PS2 total was 20.1 million units.  Both figures represented year-on-year drops from 6.6 million and 27.6 million units, respectively.