Sony says it has sold 1.2M of the PlayStation Vita

NEW YORK (AP) — Sony says it has sold 1.2 million PlayStation Vitas worldwide, exceeding the company's expectations amid stiff competition from mobile devices and Nintendo.

The handheld game system launched last week in North America, Latin America, Europe and elsewhere. It went on sale in December in Japan and other parts of Asia.

Sony Corp. did not break out figures by region, so it's not known how many of the sales came from last week's launch. The sales figures were through Sunday.

More than 2 million games have been sold for the device. The Vita costs $250 or $300 in the U.S. depending on what type of wireless connection you want. It has touch controllers both on the front screen and in the back and two traditional analog controllers to use for shooters and a bevy of other games.

The Vita launch comes at a difficult time for dedicated handheld video game machines. Many people now play "Angry Birds," ''Words with Friends" and other games on their smartphones and tablet computers. Getting them to spend several hundred dollars on a system that does games and not much else is a challenge.

Nintendo Co.'s 3DS hasn't sold as well as expected, though a recent price cut has helped some. As of December, the latest available figure, Nintendo said it had sold more than 15 million units of the 3DS. The gadget went on sale last March in the U.S. and a month earlier in Japan.

Microsoft, the third major maker of video gaming systems, does not have a handheld gaming machine and has instead focused on the Xbox 360 console.