Gamers in the US won’t be able to buy a Playstation Vita until February 22, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start buying games.
Discount retailer Walmart has already begun selling the launch title Modnation Racers: Road Trip, a good two and a half weeks before the system it’s played on will hit stores.
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This isn’t the first time we’ve seen games hitting the store shelves before their respective system, and in fact it makes us curious if this might start becoming a trend.
After all, gamers are always anxious about new systems. This one is especially exciting since Sony hasn’t released a new platform since 2006. So if there’s a little glimmer of Vita merchandise available well in advance of the system itself, customers might pick it up just to have a piece of the new platform.
It’s a way to spur sales of a launch title ahead of time, and may encourage players who had no intention of buying that particular game otherwise. Then again, it could just be that Sony didn’t set a specific release date to retailers and just assumed they would use common sense and wait for the Vita itself to go on sale.
Whatever the reason, it is at least a good sign that Vita progress in the US is coming along as expected.