Are Vita Devs Already Jumping Ship?

[The Wooster]

Are Vita Devs Already Jumping Ship?

According to one report, many Japanese developers are abandoning the Vita in favor of the 3DS. Sony naturally calls shenanigans.

A report published by former head of the Japanese branch of the International game Developers Association, Kiyoshi Shin, attributes the following to an anonymous industry source.

"Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."

Now this isn't the first time Kiyoshi has reported a mass developer exodus - he made similar claims about developers jumping over to the Wii during its meteoric rise to success- but the Vita's poor sales performance in Japan does lend some credibility to his claim. The Vita is currently being routinely outsold by its predecessor, the PSP.

According to Sony, the report is "largely exaggerated."

"Extremist quotes like that" is apparently not at all that uncommon for launches of a new product," said Scott Rohde, Sony's senior vice president of Worldwide Studios. "I mean, obviously, there is no way anyone could stand in front of a camera and say that all developers are changing focus from one platform to another, no matter what it is."

"I know many, many, many third party developers and publishers are feverishly working on Vita titles, not just for now, but for the foreseeable future," he added.

Rohde went on to argue that alarmist stories about developers fleeing platforms like bearded-rats from a sinking ship crop up during every major console release.

"There's always going to be the hot platform of the moment in our industry," he says. "There's always going to be reason to talk about a story like that."

"You can, whatever -- rewind two years ago. Every developer was you knew was selling -- going towards -- I was going to say 'selling their soul', it almost came out -- to go build games for Zynga and the Facebook platform. And there's another time when you see everyone is going to do smaller iPad games, or iOS games in general. Then it was PS3, it was 360, it's Vita, it's 3ds. It's always, constantly changing. It's not something that concerns me whatsoever."

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/40335/Is_Vita_losing_developer_support_already_Sony_responds.php]

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[MrBrightside919]

I'm having huge Deja Vu reading this...it's almost like it's happened before...

 

[Dr.Susse]

I knew it was a Grey news story before I clicked it.
You can claim that it's just the news and the news doesn't lie. But the Vita hasn't been fully released around the world or had the time to gestate and get platform to build on.

Wait for it to fail then dam it for not being the best thing ever.

 

[rapidoud]

Every developer was you knew was selling.

Uhh brain fail during interview?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

This is interesting. Not because of the odd sense of Deja Vu I'm inexplicably feeling, but because we apparently now stock rats on board our ships, as indicators of when the ship needs to be fixed. An odd strategy, sure, but it might work.

 

[LobsterFeng]

*psst* Sony. Make the Vita backwards compatible and more people will want it.

Wait is it backwards compatible?

 

[Rednog]

*psst* Sony. Make the Vita backwards compatible and more people will want it.

Wait is it backwards compatible?

It is in a sense, the entire PSP library is available to buy on their digital store for the Vita, but for those who already own the UMDs of the games, there really isn't a way to get the UMDs on the Vita, there are transfer stations in some countries but I think in North America it was cancelled.

 

[Skops]

I knew it was a Grey news story before I clicked it.
You can claim that it's just the news and the news doesn't lie. But the Vita hasn't been fully released around the world or had the time to gestate and get platform to build on.

Wait for it to fail then dam it for not being the best thing ever.

My thoughts exactly. Especially the opening sentence, and now we're gunna get a whole thread full of people saying 'Good thing I'm not getting one' or 'Well there goes my purchase' and 'lol, what a failure! Sony's dying.'

 

[artanis_neravar]

I'm a little uneducated on the Vita and why it's doing so bad.

Can someone please enlighten me as to why it's such a bad handheld? when they showed it at E3 everyone seemed to love it...

It's not doing bad, Sony knew that the PSP is still selling well in Japan whereas it kind of flopped here, so their focus was selling it here first, hence the plethora of western titles, and no jrpgs. They expect it not to sell well in Japan for a while until the Japanese style games start to come out.

 

[artanis_neravar]

*psst* Sony. Make the Vita backwards compatible and more people will want it.

Wait is it backwards compatible?

well it is physically incapable of holding the UMD's as well as reading them. However any PSP game that is on the PSN is available for download to play on the Vita

 

[Nurb]

You mean mobile devices where the creators have strict control over the use of them by their customers in a way that would make a fascist dictator blush without offering any sort of backwards compatibility would scare away customers? Well who'da thunk.

 

[Something Amyss]

You can claim that it's just the news and the news doesn't lie. But the Vita hasn't been fully released around the world or had the time to gestate and get platform to build on.

Which doesn't preclude this being true, because devs don't always wait for the full picture. Especially when losses are an issue.

Wait for it to fail then dam it for not being the best thing ever.

Damn. Unless you want them to build a device to stop water. In which case, you were right.

Still, this hardly reads as damnation. Perhaps you're looking too much into it?

Also, not sure if this is a "Grey" thing, but since it's being covered around the web (And the Escapist was one of the first places I saw anything to address the rumour, which is effectively disputing the rumour), I have trouble seeing how Grey writing the story makes it any less valid, even if he has some vendetta.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

*psst* Sony. Make the Vita backwards compatible and more people will want it.

Wait is it backwards compatible?

It is in a sense, the entire PSP library is available to buy on their digital store for the Vita, but for those who already own the UMDs of the games, there really isn't a way to get the UMDs on the Vita, there are transfer stations in some countries but I think in North America it was cancelled.

Which makes me wonder, being the Unlocked region system the PSP is, if PS Vita is the same, shouldn't the transfer station work for us if we simply ebay'd it from Japan?

Unless it's been region locked to "JP" Games.

 

[artanis_neravar]

*psst* Sony. Make the Vita backwards compatible and more people will want it.

Wait is it backwards compatible?

It is in a sense, the entire PSP library is available to buy on their digital store for the Vita, but for those who already own the UMDs of the games, there really isn't a way to get the UMDs on the Vita, there are transfer stations in some countries but I think in North America it was cancelled.

Which makes me wonder, being the Unlocked region system the PSP is, if PS Vita is the same, shouldn't the transfer station work for us if we simply ebay'd it from Japan?

Unless it's been region locked to "JP" Games.

As far as I know it's a system where you register your game on the PSN and it allows you to download said game for a discount, so I would assume Japanese games would allow the download of their Japanese PSN counterparts, and only if you have a Japanese PSN account

 

[Ocelano]

I'm a little uneducated on the Vita and why it's doing so bad.

Can someone please enlighten me as to why it's such a bad handheld? when they showed it at E3 everyone seemed to love it...

It's not doing bad, Sony knew that the PSP is still selling well in Japan whereas it kind of flopped here, so their focus was selling it here first, hence the plethora of western titles, and no jrpgs. They expect it not to sell well in Japan for a while until the Japanese style games start to come out.

At least one jrpg I read that disgaea 3 was coming out on it that is one of the things that actually sold me on the preorder that and my current psp is emmitting the first rattling coughs of imminent death

 

[The Wooster]

You can claim that it's just the news and the news doesn't lie. But the Vita hasn't been fully released around the world or had the time to gestate and get platform to build on.

Which doesn't preclude this being true, because devs don't always wait for the full picture. Especially when losses are an issue.

Wait for it to fail then dam it for not being the best thing ever.

Damn. Unless you want them to build a device to stop water. In which case, you were right.

Still, this hardly reads as damnation. Perhaps you're looking too much into it?

Also, not sure if this is a "Grey" thing, but since it's being covered around the web (And the Escapist was one of the first places I saw anything to address the rumour, which is effectively disputing the rumour), I have trouble seeing how Grey writing the story makes it any less valid, even if he has some vendetta.

The great irony is that, despite the fact morons continue to inerpret coverage of negative events as evidence of "teh bias," I'm actually very excited about the Vita. I'm particularly looking forward to the next installment of Resistance.

 

[Yopaz]

I'm a little uneducated on the Vita and why it's doing so bad.

Can someone please enlighten me as to why it's such a bad handheld? when they showed it at E3 everyone seemed to love it...

It got a slow start just like the 3DS and the DS. It's too early to say if it's really a flop to be honest.

 

[JackWestJr]

I agree with Dr.Susse on this one; shouldn't we wait until thing has actually been released in a country apart from Japan before we start hammering it?

 

[RatRace123]

It wouldn't surprise me all that much if it was true.

The Vita has its pluses to be sure, but the pricing of the system, and the memory cards, along with the games, it runs for quite a pretty penny, moreso than one would expect for a handheld system.

Add in the lack of backwards compatibility, or rather the lack of backwards compatibility that you don't have to frickin' pay for again.

There's still a lot to like about the Vita, but in some cases the cons seemingly outweigh the pros. And given the history the PSP had, devs may be hesitant to work on a Sony handheld system, where success isn't necessarily guaranteed.