Sony Will Lose Money on Vita Hardware Sales

[Eiv]

id rather have a dedicated device for games. Gaming on my phone is nice, but not something i would like to do longterm.

Vita isn't a phone, it doesn't even have phone capabilites.

i never said it was >.<

 

[VanQ]

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I just want to quote to say that you are one of the few people here with any sense at all. I hate how whenever a new piece of harware come out you get nothing but doomsayers screaming "It's not Nintendo so it will fail!"
Ugh, frankly, this looks to be an exciting step forward for handheld gaming and I am very excited that Sony chose to release it at a lower price. It's the best way to open the gates and get the consoles into peoples hands. People are much more willing to pay $50-60 on games than $300+ on a console.

 

[Baresark]

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In a perfect world, yes, it would be nice to have cheaper games and cheap consoles. But this is not the perfect world which you are theorising. It doesn't work that way. From a business sense, it's perfectly reasonable to sell consoles at an artificially lowered price, and then artificially raising the price of the games. What they need to do is get the console into the hands of consumers as quickly as possible. Sony might not be making any profit if people are buying the system a lower price, but they're certainly not going to be making any profit if people simply aren't buying their products in the first place. So they lower the price of the console so people think "wow, that's a great deal, and it has some pretty good games too. I should grab one".

Of course, what do the customers do then? Well, they have a games consoles, so they need to buy some games, don't they. And they only games available are these ones at a raised price. And games are things Sony can consistently make profit on. It's hard to make a lot of profit when the consumers are only buying one PS Vita, especially if you're still trying to keep the price as low as possible to stay competitive. But if every person who buys a PS Vita buys several games for the consoles at even a slightly raised price, that's a LOT more profit.

I understand what you're saying. It would be nice not having to get anally raped every time I try to want to buy a game. But do you honestly think that the retailers are going to sell cheaper games anyway? Even if they could pick them up at a lower price than normal, they're just going to jack up the price so they get more profit than the other games, because they know that's how much people are willing (not necessarily happy to, but willing) to pay for their games.

And don't pretend that Sony are some greedy company who are scheming to get your money. This is what all the companies do. Maybe not this exact way, but to them, the bottom line is always the number one priority, and they'll do whatever they can think of to make that number as big and round as possible.

Actually, if they were to make a system so it was profitable at $250, and then the games were cheaper because of more cost efficient licensing, they would profit from both ends. They could sell the same number of units, if not more because of the cost effective software pricing, and since the software would be cheaper, it would be a more viable product for more people. They would make bigger profits, ultimately. And I would never peg a company as greedy because they were trying to be profitable, they need to be profitable as they possibly can. I'm not claiming gouging or any such thing as many people do, which is a really crappy line of reasoning altogether. I am simply saying that it's a poor investment on their part to plan to sell something at a loss in hopes of making it up by increased software sales. It's not unreasonable for the company to make a system they can sell profitably at that price. And while it's powerful now, it won't be for long because of the turn around of technology and how quickly a newer and much better generation comes along.

It's not theorizing about a perfect world to ask for cheaper hardware and cheaper software, that is what capitalism works to do, provide goods and services to the customer at an ever more affordable price while reaping maximum profits for the company.

An easy to sell system makes more software producers likely to make games for them, and more software means more license sales, meaning more money for Sony without the need to increase prices. Also, at cheaper prices the consumer is more likely to buy more software more often, than if something is more expensive, so software companies will make better money. Better money for them means that they are more likely to take risks and produce unique and imaginative new IP's instead of rehashing the same things over and over again.

 

[THE_NAMSU]

They wont make any money in the UK. its $410 for the 3G model here.

Seriously WTF. I knew the PSV was going to be more expensive in the UK, but WTF man.
What the heck did the Americans do to deserve cheaper stuff? I thought the Japanese and British had good relations!!!! ><
For God's sake,Sony would have actually had more support in the UK if you think about it (Americans being patrotic and all, leaning over to the American Microsoft, Apple and so on) so what were they thinking making it more expensive here!
I although quite like the look of the NGP, but they are not going to make much profit because businesses like GAME are greedy and over price everything, and pre owned games spoil profits, and most of all the NGP will inevitable be hacked like the PSP.