Sony Surprised by Developers' Lack of Interest in The Vita

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, well, it's not really a catch-22 thing. Sony itself can increase their install base by lowering the cost of the hardware. Like it or not it's very pricy. If they say decided to move the hardware for $20 or whatever they would take a huge loss on the hardware sales but would also obtain the install base dramatically and be able to make up the losses through it's share of games using it.

$20 for a Vita? Yeah, I'd buy it. I imagine it would be sold out by the time doors opened.

Yep, which is my point. They could pretty much put one in everyone's hands. Even if Sony lost many millions on the manufacture, with an install base that big they would make it back and then some through the sales of games and software, especially if they didn't inflate the prices to a crazy degree.

That's generally not how the industry, especially Sony, thinks. They want to make a tidy profit on the hardware, and then make even more profit by selling the games and services for as much money as the market can bear without snapping. They don't seem to get that people nowadays aren't anxious to pay top dollar for the right to give them more money.

Of course at the same time I don't actually expect anyone to simply be content with making a tidy profit at the end of the day. It's all about pure greed, and monster profits. Right now you could make a decent amount of money by virtually giving away hardware, and selling AAA level games fairly cheaply and relying on volume sales. It's just not enough money to satisfy your average corperate greed monster. As a result you see two avenues of development, one of which is to make everything high quality and super expensive, the other is to make everything low quality and cheap. Rather than lowering their prices and profit expectations your seeing a lot of big game developers, publishers, and even hardware manufacturers turning towards apps and cell phone games and such and churning out shovelware. In all likelyhood Sony would quit the gaming arena, abandon hardware manufacture, and do nothing but churn out apps, before actually settling for lower profit expectations and giving away more for less, going for volume sales with quality goods.

 

[roneel]

sony needs a monster hunter

 

[madster11]

Price the memory cards in a non-retarded way and start selling some of the best PSP games over the PSN for $10 or less. Bring out an update so it can run background apps while playing games.

Throw some incentives at Capcom to port MH3 portable HD over to the Vita, then make a bundle including the game, the wi-fi model and a 16gb memory card at normal retail pricing.
Hey, look, suddenly you're getting sales!

 

[oldtaku]

Sony sold 400,000 Vitas in the last three months.

Apple sells that many handheld gaming devices every 33 hours or so.

I guess at least Sony can point to the lack of competition on the Vita?

 

[shadowstriker86]

sony stinks of desperation right now, like that one girl at school thats a massive attention whore that people stopped paying attention to. so she decides to try new tactics, like releasing a new console with new overpriced single purpose memory cards, or releasing a smash bros. type game, and wonders why people dont really wanna pay attention to her.

 

[The_Echo]

Nintendo seems to always win handheld races against more powerful foes.

I really think that's only because Nintendo got in early and monopolized mobile gaming.

And when money is involved, nobody really wants to root for the underdog.

It's a shame, really. Both the PSP had and the Vita has potential to be a great handheld. It just needs the games.

 

[Trishbot]

Nintendo seems to always win handheld races against more powerful foes.

I really think that's only because Nintendo got in early and monopolized mobile gaming.

And when money is involved, nobody really wants to root for the underdog.

It's a shame, really. Both the PSP had and the Vita has potential to be a great handheld. It just needs the games.

There were portable systems before the GameBoy.

I think, if anything, Nintendo is often the underdog. The 3DS was WIDELY called a "disaster" early on, but it recovered and the quirky system is selling just fine. Yet when the Vita was selling almost 1/10th as much as the 3DS, and both the PSP and the PS2 were outselling it, there were far less cries of "disaster" and "flop" (though they're were some, and they keep picking up).

By this point in time, the WonderSwan (2 million - Japan only), the GameGear (11 million), and the friggin' the N-Gage (3 million) had sold more systems than the PS Vita has. It's about on par with Neo*Geo Pocket levels (2 million). PS Vita, globally, is sitting at around 2.2 million.

 

[FalloutJack]

That's strange, this post was longer when I walked in here...

Let me touch upon the backwards compatibility problem.

There is a rather problematic issue in that. You have to know what your audience is really willing to go for. Sometimes they're fine with paying for a game again down the road, but from handheld to handheld? Clearly, the answer was no in this case, as it has been no in others. There are quite a few that have had this game and don't want to pay over and over for different interations like that. And why not? Half of them feel like it's a cheap money-grubbing trick which they could have a point about in at least some cases.

The problem here was that they were trying to get people to abandon the PSP - reasonable numbers holding onto the things and their game libraries - in favor of a small amount of games and a small amount of ports. Why would they? I mean, really, why? In many cases, they HAVE their PSPs and the Vita won't play what they've got, probably. Unless it developed either merits on its own or flexibility, it was a doomed product. It's nothing to do with the competition. This was entirely Sony's actual fault for not reading the writing on the walls on how to handle their product.

 

[Jason Rayes]

Damnit, Every single article talking about handhelds says something about how smartphones are killing traditional mobile gaming, yet I have not seen a SINGLE person playing a game on their smartphone that wasn't either Angry Birds or Draw Something. 2 games are destroying an entire industry? Really?

I play a lot of games on my phone and I don't even own the two you mentioned. Jetpack Joyride, Run Roo Run, Hunters 2, Dungeon Crawlers and Galaxy of Fire 2 are all great for the commute. I think Horn will be my next purchase though, it looks sweet. Just because you haven't seen people play any other games doesn't mean they don't. Oh and I just picked up Dungeon Village when Kairo had their sale the other day, Game Dev Story killed hours of my time. My mobile has my portable gaming covered.

 

[Casual Shinji]

One would assume Sony could've seen this coming, but instead they figured third parties would simply flock to them just because they're Sony.

People don't want a console experience on their handheld, Sony. That's what, you know, home consoles are for. Life and learn... again.

 

[zidine100]

yes, because; after the release screw they did with the psp, the general failure of the psp in this country, the price of the vita and the damn near essential hardware you need to buy with it, and the high piracy rates on the psp. It Really is surprising how you know there not biting your hand off to get there game on their new failing console.

 

[weirdee]

also, i don't know, going out on a limb here, maybe you didn't notice how TERRIBLE THE PSP TIMELINE LOOKS to the average dev

perhaps if you took some time off from persecuting hackers and maybe just made a more user friendly product, people might be more inclined to try it

 

[VoidWanderer]

They remember the PSP sales... that and they stupid idea of launching the Vita when developers didn't care was a pretty stupid thing to do.

 

[Sylveria]

If the Vita didn't cost $300+ when you factor in the console and a decent sized memory card more people would buy it and then more devs would be interested in it. It's pretty simple Sony, you made your new handheld too expensive by putting in proprietary bullshit and completely un-needed touch-pad technology... Then went and cut out important features like the output display and didn't put in any BW compatibility, giving people no reason to even consider upgrading.

 

[Slitzkin]

Personally I'm surprised that these sort of things surprise Sony. They've been around the block more than a few times, one would expect better foresight and anticipation from them. A handheld device should be cheap and focused towards a younger audience, when I was a mere lad I spent hours and hourse on my Gameboy Advanced.Nowadays as a faux-adult I try to avoid playing videogames on a handheld device (whether it be a Sony, Nintendo or even a damn smart phone). I guess the hierarchy (or the great chain of video games) goes as follows:
1. The Glorious PC Master Race
2. Console Playing Peasants
3. Handheld Clutching Dregs

Or in other words:
1. Bourgeoisie
2. The Middle Class
3. Proletariat

Suffice to say, handhelds are the tool of the proletariat and are evil communists weapons designed to destroy everything righteous in the western world. SO COMMUNISM IS BLAME FOR THE FAILURE OF THE SONY VITA!

 

[Deathlyphil]

I'm surprised this hasn't been linked yet. It gives an idea of how screwed Sony are, and then goes on to give some reasons why. Apparently, all the engineers are working completely separately, hoping to build the next "revolutionary device" (walkman, playstation, etc). They refuse to work together, and don't listen to what the execs want. That's why the PS3, PSP, and Vita feel so fragmented, they ARE fragmented devices.

http://www.notenoughshaders.com/2012/09/08/the-ten-year-decline-of-sony/

OT: Dropping the price of Vitas would bring people in, but Sony can't afford to do that. From the looks of things, they can't afford to do much at the moment.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I'm surprised this hasn't been linked yet. It gives an idea of how screwed Sony are, and then goes on to give some reasons why. Apparently, all the engineers are working completely separately, hoping to build the next "revolutionary device" (walkman, playstation, etc). They refuse to work together, and don't listen to what the execs want. That's why the PS3, PSP, and Vita feel so fragmented, they ARE fragmented devices.

http://www.notenoughshaders.com/2012/09/08/the-ten-year-decline-of-sony/

OT: Dropping the price of Vitas would bring people in, but Sony can't afford to do that. From the looks of things, they can't afford to do much at the moment.

The second I read about the Vita's specs and its whole selling point I KNEW that Sony hadn't learned a damn thing from the PSP's problems. They just don't understand handheld gaming. At all.

Criminy, Sony has messed up THREE system launches in a row. If they screw up with the PS4 they might be screwed.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

There were portable systems before the GameBoy.

I think, if anything, Nintendo is often the underdog. The 3DS was WIDELY called a "disaster" early on, but it recovered and the quirky system is selling just fine. Yet when the Vita was selling almost 1/10th as much as the 3DS, and both the PSP and the PS2 were outselling it, there were far less cries of "disaster" and "flop" (though they're were some, and they keep picking up).

The portable devices before the GameBoy had a major fault. They either came with a set amount of games installed or were a separate game themselves. The GameBoy's use of cartridges was an instant success.

Nintendo has never been looked at as the underdog in the handheld market. Even the Virtual Boy had hype before release. And to be honest if the 3DS didn't get that massive price cut, I doubt it would be doing much better than the PS Vita.