Sony Still Thinks the Vita is Doing Well

[Doom-Slayer]

-snip-

YOU JUST USED TERRIBAD. Best word ever. Me and my friends have been using that word for ages now, that and Incredimazing. Apprently some series had actors mixing words up like blue and purple to blurople, so my friend made up Terribad, Incredimazing and a few others.

 

[markman360]

The problem with Sony is that many of their customer base(including me) have felt betrayed over the last year or so. If you want a starting point I would say it was the PSN blackout, and the way that they handled it. If they want my trust and good will now they are going to have to work for it, and I like Sony so I really hope they do. So far, however, all they have done is increase my frustration with them because we get news of the Vita, which I was ecstatic about, but then after a series of missteps, very high purchase price and proprietary memory being the most blindingly infuriating, I just can't muster hardly any enthusiasm for it anymore. If I get the Vita at all it would only be if they offered a significant price drop as well as including the memory in that lowered price.

 

[Baresark]

Nice, brave facing it up I see. Sony has the worst posturing I have ever seen. The community could at least be understanding if they were like,

"yeah, it's not going as well as we had hoped, but we are going to hold out and try doing some things that will increase the demand for the system."

Nope, instead they are all spite,

"buy it, don't buy it, it's cool, we don't need you".

Only, they do need us and their stupid posturing is getting in the way. I will say this, as long as it costs me a half a weeks pay, it's a no go for here. At least for what they are offering.

There is the magical seventh choice though (it'a random number I picked, clearly) is that they seem to know more than the rest of us about what is going on. While I would agree they know a bunch more things about the situation than myself, I question what amount of their knowledge is useful in this situation. One thing is for sure, I can only speculate at this point.

 

[-Dragmire-]

I wonder if the earthquake in Japan last year is still affecting their market for expensive entertainment products. It could be one of the factors affecting sales.

 

[Rad Party God]

Still haven't lowered your prices Sony?, your customers still need to buy outlandishly expensive memory cards?, still no Monster Hunter?, no?, then no pretty yens for you, Sony.

 

[Caligulove]

Considering the Vita hasn't been released on the international market yet, the tone of these articles seems far too alarmist.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Terribad isn't new. My friends and I have been-

-snip-

YOU JUST USED TERRIBAD. Best word ever. Me and my friends have been using that word for ages now, that and Incredimazing. Apprently some series had actors mixing words up like blue and purple to blurople, so my friend made up Terribad, Incredimazing and a few others.

...fuck. We thought we were being original.

Anyway, we'll see what the North American market is like. Myself? Never going to own a Sony handheld. I've got my DS. Actually, I've got 3 of them.

 

[oldtaku]

They're just hanging in for a Monster Hunter. That's all that matters. It saved the 3DS, it can save the Vita.

 

[Yoshisummons]

What's a vita?

 

[Yopaz]

"We beat our sales forecast! We sold 7 Vitas this week!"

This made me laugh so much. Thank you for this comment.

 

[Sexy Devil]

*deleted*

 

[The Pinray]

Ha ha, haven't heard "terribad" in awhile. Me and my friends used to use it all the time.

Also, I predicted this. But hey, let's just give it some time. Let it get it's legs.

Let's reconvene in a year!

 

[Therumancer]

I prefer Repugsive to Terribad personally.

That said let's not forget Sony tends to take a long-term view unlike some other companies. They like to release powerful products that will be around for a while, and increase in number slowly over time, and gradually build up a prescence. This worked to some extent with the PS-3 which despite some similar earlier predictions DID become a lasting market prescence.

500k units on the market isn't really bad for a toy like this, granted it blows chips compared to the number of DS units or whatever, but I don't think they are judging success purely in a short term numerical competition.

As far as Sony taking a loss, I'm not a fan, but they are suffering from a huge network hack a few months ago, as well as having their fingers in a LOT of Pies. The scary thing about Sony is that despite appearing somewhat humble on some reports, very, very few people know exactly how big it is. It was apparently the real-world inspiration for a lot of those evil Japanacorps present in Cyberpunk fiction that wind up taking over the world by surprise because nobody realizing their true extent until they make their move.

It occurs to me that the last time they seemed to take a bath in video gaming... the initial PS-3 release, they were also engaged in a huge battle to dominate the new video format... Blu Rays, and the lasers used for PS-3 units were being repurposed for higher priced, and cheaper to manufacture dedicated Blu-Ray players that were being promoted to a market that would watch movies but didn't play games and were likely to overlook the PS-3 capabilities as a gaming device. It WAS a move that worked fairly well as Blu-Ray did become the dominant next generation format, even if it's had a harder time overcoming DVD than DVD had against VHS tapes. As a long term investment that is bloody huge.

In short if this is an overall report for Sony, I'd have to say that I very much doubt it's validity. Sony is like a combination of Cthulhu and Godzilla. If they report a lost they probably want you to believe that for some reason and it's likely not true. If it IS true it's probably the result of a huge investment which is more likely than not going to pay off, because Sony rarely loses in anything but the short term.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Shame, seems like a nice bit of kit.

I kinda want a Vita, but its just too expensive, I'l get it when the price drops and believe me, It will drop.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Typical PR bullshit.

The Vita could make Sony hemorrhage money and they'd still put on a brave face and call it a success.

"We beat our sales forecast! We sold 7 Vitas this week!"

I actually disagree. When you look at the leading, major AAA games that are releasing along side the Vita (or close to its release date) they're very blatantly geared towards western and european gamers. Rayman, Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, Modnation, Wipeout, ETC. are all distinct western games. The few Japanese games I've seen are mediocre at best. I actually DO believe Japan had this in their forecast. If they wanted it to excel in Japan at the BEGINNING they would have released more AAA Japanese games. But I feel like they know the PSP is still doing strong in Japan. The rest of the world? Not so much. Sony (I think) is banking on the Vita being the "PSP" for the rest of us.

I'd expect them to get a lot more sales come the holiday season when some big Japanese RPG or something releases for the Vita.

I also think that they're expecting the biggest sales to come from this upcoming holiday.

That, and if you can learn anything from Sony's console releases (including the PSP, PS2, and PS3) it's that Sony is very patient and is willing to wait a damn long time for a product to make a good profit.

I for one hope that this ISN'T PR bullshit cause I want Sony to support my new Vita for years to come!

That actually makes a lot of sense, and I hope you're right.

I wasn't ever going to get a 3Ds, so I was hoping the Vita would be my next portable.

Throw in a Monster Hunter title, and they've got a sale from me.

 

[Kroxile]

haha, another super expensive paper-weight by sony. The PSP was awful, mine ended up being a 250 dollar mp3 player before I sold the junk ass thing.

I'll be looking at the games that come out for it though to see if it becomes worth a damn, but not getting any expectations of greatness.

 

[FalloutJack]

Terribad isn't new. My friends and I have been-

-snip-

YOU JUST USED TERRIBAD. Best word ever. Me and my friends have been using that word for ages now, that and Incredimazing. Apprently some series had actors mixing words up like blue and purple to blurople, so my friend made up Terribad, Incredimazing and a few others.

...fuck. We thought we were being original.

Anyway, we'll see what the North American market is like. Myself? Never going to own a Sony handheld. I've got my DS. Actually, I've got 3 of them.

One for outdoors, one for indoors, and one for on-the-go?

Also...yeah, lots of people have cases like these. Several words I made up (like "Snackage") years later ended up in the dictionary. Doesn't make you unoriginal if you were unaware of others saying or doing the same thing. People acknowledge Nikola Tesla, dammit!

 

[Something Amyss]

It's not quite dead.

It's only mostly dead?

There's only one thing to do....

 

[android88]

The Vita is only out in one country and looking at the release line-up, it's more western focused so it may release to the west and sell well. Also, what are we comparing it to? the IPhone? That was an exciting new product that did everything. The Vita is a high powered games console with Internet connectivity better than the PSP. It was never going to do better than an IPhone, but with games like Call of Duty coming for it, it may pick up. Let's not forget the 3DS, it only really sold when it dropped in price and got some decent games, hopefully Vita won't need a price drop. Oh, and I heard rumors that Persona 4 will be coming to the Vita.

One last thought, as much as we gamers mock the PSP and call it a failure, it did end up selling 70 million units. All I'm saying is don't jump to conclusions based on sales in one country and give it a chance, I bet even Sony know it's going to be a slow burner, a reliable cash stream rather than one big cash grab.