Sony: $250 Vita is the "Right Price"

[StewShearerOld]

Sony: $250 Vita is the "Right Price"

Sony's Guy Longworth thinks the Vita will be the perfect companion to the PlayStation 4.

It's been more than a year since the PlayStation Vita first made its way into the hands of gamers, and the months following haven't been the kindest to Sony's portable. Sales for the handheld have been <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121407-Hirai-Vita-Sales-On-the-Low-End-of-Expectations>considerably lower than Sony expected, a reality that apparently hasn't discouraged the company or lessened its belief in the Vita's potential to succeed. "With Vita, we're only 15 months in to launch," said Guy Longworth, Sony's senior vice president of PlayStation brand marketing. While that may seem like a long time for some, Sony, no stranger to planning for <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/98687-Sony-CEO-Cant-Imagine-Future-of-PlayStation>the long game, thinks the handheld may find its stride as a partner to the forthcoming PlayStation 4. "We think that with PlayStation 4 the opportunity for Vita is to be the absolutely perfect companion to the PS4."

There are certainly compelling reasons to believe that. It was recently revealed, for instance, that the Vita would be able to <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124426-Sony-Confirms-Vita-Remote-Play-For-All-PS4-Games>play all PS4 titles remotely with a Wi-Fi connection. If features like this can help to move Vitas, Longworth believes the handheld will move games. "What we're seeing is that once people get it in their hands and buy it, they're buying games and they love it." Even if the PS4 helps to sell Vitas, there are many who think, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122535-Japanese-Vita-Sales-Quadruple-After-Price-Drop>not without reason, that the best medicine for the ailing handheld would be to cut its price point around the world. Sadly, Longworth affirmed that is not likely to be the case. "With PS Vita we feel that $250 is the right price, and I'm not going to comment on where we might go in the future."

Source: <a href=http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-06-24-sony-most-gamers-dont-want-to-buy-online-right-now>Games Industry



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[erbkaiser]

Well the sales figures seem to disagree. Personally I feel the PSVita is at least $100 too expensive, considering you're still required to buy Sony's ridiculously expensive memory cards for it in order to use them.
A price point drop to $150 may just be enough incentive for people to actually buy one. Heck, if they bundle a 32GB memory card, even $200 is acceptable.

Yes the Wii U GamePad... err PS Vita/PS4 crossplay is interesting, but $250 on top of the costs for a PS4 for essentially a special controller is insane.

 

[Roxas1359]

No, the price is not justified when you also have to purchase an overpriced memory card, I know it's not exactly that but that's what I call them, just so that you can play the games. Seriously I checked on GameStop and a 32 GB card for the Vita costs $99 and on Amazon an 8 GB card costs $30! That's outrageous, and it's obvious that the price drop in Japan boosted the sales of the Vita there and if they were to drop the price in the States it would surely sell more.

Seriously Sony you had the PSP Go launch at $250 and it proved that it wouldn't sell for that high of a price, well that combined with other reasons as well.

Yes the Wii U GamePad... err PS Vita/PS4 crossplay is interesting, but $250 on top of the costs for a PS4 for essentially a special controller is insane.

Funny thing is that while you can't buy the Wii U gamepad separately it sells on Ebay for $50 less than the Vita. XD

 

[el_kabong]

I personally fall right into the category of consumer being discussed by Longsworth. I had absolutely no desire to get a Vita until I learned that you can remote play games from ANYWHERE with a Wi-Fi connection (almost everywhere I would be playing a Vita) and that PS4 games will require this functionality. Having portable access to my entire games library (at least those on the PS4) is massively appealing to me.

I'll wait to see some reviews and tech demos once the PS4 is out before I make my decision, but the Vita has now generated interest from me where there was apathy.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Sorry, no one is going to spend >$600 (Vita + Card for it + PS4) just to get a bad version of the WiiU, and no one is going to spend >$250 (Which includes cards) on a console that's (Gamewise and experience Wise) worse then the 3DS.

 

[Terramax]

I love my vita but, no Sony, it's not the right price. Furthermore, you hit another nail in its coffin with a lack of new games announced for the damn thing.

Where are the goddamn exclusives!?

Anyways, Sony made it fairly clear they see the vita as more of an add-on to the PS4 than a separate entity.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Are they sneakily trying to advertise the PSV? I doubt you can use it for PS4 games, but if you could play PS3/2/1 games on it that you downloaded to your PS4 via PSN then i guess that could be a good reason to buy one. Maybe.

Im not sure which company tried a similiar thing, i think it was SOny, but not sure. Where you could play your game out and about and collect extra XP or money so when you got home you could play your console with that extra xp and money.

 

[orangeapples]

drop it by $50 to $200. Then bundle it with a PS4 for $575. That'll boost sales.

 

[Jhooud]

I grabbed my Vita from eBay, so the price was right. I just couldn't make the jump to buy a unit new with the cost of the memory hanging over the deal. It's a great system, and I'm very happy I bought it, but the base price plus the stupidly expensive memory is a tough sell.

 

[rofltehcat]

It is competing with the 3DS and with the WiiU... nope, I think 250 is far too much.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

I've never had an issue with the base price, its the damn memory cards that are the problem.

 

[FalloutJack]

The right price for the Vita is "You don't screw me out of my PSP games", otherwise no dice. Just because we like your PS4 pitch doesn't mean the Vita gets an automatic in.

 

[J Tyran]

Well the sales figures seem to disagree. Personally I feel the PSVita is at least $100 too expensive,

Thing is the hardware inside the Vita is expensive, no way around that. Sony have cut it to the bone price wise as it is, so much so that they had to remove internal memory to try and keep the price down. The Vita costs more because the fancy OLED screen and the pair of high end quad core CPU and GPU are expensive parts.

 

[erbkaiser]

Sure, but the thing is hardly selling at all. At some point making a loss on the console in order to sell more units, and earn back your loss in software, becomes common sense.

I do trust that Sony has plans for the Vita, the new games being almost all cross-buy and the future PS4 interaction may give the failed handheld a second life, but if (when) that fails to make the Vita a success I do hope Sony opts to lower its price.

I still don't have a Vita and likely will not buy one until the price drops.

 

[Covarr]

Sony, you've made the crucial mistake of overpowering your machine. You can get away with making a beast of a console and charging more for it, because that's what people expect out of a home console. But in the handheld realm, cheap reigns supreme. Nintendo has had the upper hand in handhelds ever since the Game Boy, not because they made the best machine out there, but because they made the most affordable machine out there that was still decent.

The thing is, people don't view a handheld as the same as something they connect to their TV. A handheld needs to be cheaper because it does less. A handheld needs to be cheaper because the experience is inherently less satisfying due to the smaller screen. A handheld needs to be cheaper because a parent can buy one console for all their kids, but needs separate handhelds for each kid.

The PSP eventually ended up succeeding, but not because Sony did anything right. Its target audience didn't care about it; they all bought a DS or an Xbox 360 instead. It succeeded because it became a bit of an unexpected haven for homebrew, and owners decided they might as well buy a few games also. If the Vita's security is half as good as it aims to be, that won't happen again; the only way the Vita will succeed is if they can convey its value to the average user, and that's simply not something that can be done at $250 with such a limited game selection and no real standout features.

tl;dr - If $250 were the right price, the damn thing would be selling.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Shinsei-J]

drop it by $50 to $200. Then bundle it with a PS4 for $575. That'll boost sales.

Oh damn, if they bundled them for that price or even $600 sales would sky rocket for both.

Imagine the sales pitch,
"For $100 extra they gave you an internet browser, for $100 more, we'll give you the most powerful handheld ever made."
That'd be the most devastating burn in the history console smack talk.

 

[Snotnarok]

Okay, fair enough keep the price at $250, but then cut the cost of those fucking memory cards to about 1/4th the price considering you can get SD/Mini SD cards larger for a fraction of the cost. It makes PSN purchases very much something to hesitate on when it's 10 for the game but then your card doesn't have the needed space to save said game. 100 bucks for a 32GB card? Can find a miniSD for 16, what's the excuse?

Hell I have the 8GB card and I've barely got anything on it and I'm always teetering on 1gb left.
Games installed: PS Allstars, Final Fantasy Tactics, Grandia and 2 Demos not breaking the 600mb barrier annnd I have ....2.3GB left, that's barely enough for most Vita games never the less the other PSN titles I have.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

The problem with the Vita has nothing to do with the price. That big pretty screen justifies the price. So long as there are games for the bloody thing.

The answer to the Vita's woes are right within reach. Make some forking games for it!

I bought my Vita at launch. I bought my 3DS 2 and a half months ago. I already have more games for my 3DS. And I don't even like Mario! Parity with the PS4 does sound exciting. But a $250 add-on isn't going to build it's install base. Sony needs to be leading the charge with interesting software that will help sell the thing, and hopefully makes the best use of the unique features of the system.