Western interest in Vita TV greater than expected, says Sony

Interest among westerners for Sony's recently-announced PlayStation Vita TV has exceeded the company's expectations, Sony Computer Entertainment's Masayasu Ito told Eurogamer.

Ito said feedback since the hardware's unveiling last week has been "strong ... more than we expected," and the company is considering launching the product outside of Japan. An international launch, however, means Sony would need to consider adding other media content for other territories.

"Of course, we are thinking about launching it in the U.S. and Europe," Ito later told Polygon, noting that Sony would need to launch the hardware with western equivalents of the NicoNico Douga and Tsutaya TV video streaming services. "We will look into each possibility before launching this in the West."

"Of course, we are thinking about launching it in the U.S. and Europe."

Sony Computer Entertainment head Andrew House corroborated that the response from western consumers has been encouraging for Sony. House also explained that Vita TV will launch in Japan first because the territory currently has no equal or competing devices, while streaming boxes are more common in other regions.

"There isn't really a competitor [in Japan] that's staked out a claim," he explained. "And frankly, in my own view, Japan is a little behind the adoption curve in video streaming services.

"So we thought we could have an opportunity in Japan to really establish a leadership position by having an additional differentiated killer app — which is having our huge library of streaming games content," he added.