Forbes: It's a Rough Fall for the Playstation Vita

[Dodece]

JWeinCom said:

Dodece said:

JWeinCom said:

Why should we be doing Sony any favors?  I don't want the Vita to fail or anything, but it's Sony's job to make the Vita a success, not ours.  Right now, Sony hasn't created a product or a software library that warrants a 250+ price tag, and accordingly we ask them to lower the price to reflect the value of the device. Sony's not helping me out with my personal problems, so i don't think I'm going to help them with theirs.

I think you are getting me wrong. I am not for the Vita or for Sony. I am however for reality. There are however some in this thread, or on these forums that do want the Vita to succeed, and their justifications for it doing just that. Always revolve around a price cut coming to the rescue. My point being that is isn't going to happen, and their perpetuating that story line is actually a self defeating act. I really could care less if they want to spin fairytales about their god rising from its grave, but when they are doing something so foolish as to keep tossing more dirt on that grave. Well it is so ridiculous it really warrants someone taking the time to point it out to them.

At the end of the day it isn't even about the Vita. There are a lot of people here who just root for the brand. In the same way some root for a local sports team. They don't necessarily care what happens to individual players. They just care about how it affects their team. To put it mildly a lot of them wouldn't give a flying fuck about the Vita if it didn't have Sony on the label. To them the Vita can only be a stain or a medal.

Fair enough, but what else short of a price cut can help the Vita?  Obviously games, but can Sony produce a true system seller?  What would movitvate third parties to develop expensive AAA titles for the Vita?  It's hard to really think of a Vita recovery scenario that doesn't involve.  

a) Slashing the price.

b) Paying big money for exclusives.

Either way, Sony is going to have to take a hit to right the ship.  If they truly can't do that, then I don't see the Vita bouncing back.

I fervently believe that Sony had a window of opportunity, but given development cycles that window has closed. Basically the things needed to salvage the ship needed to be in the works before launch. Nothing can be done about the poor hardware choices that were made. Which are locking in the price point. While any capitol ventured on new game development probably won't bring the needed games to the platform soon enough. That all being said I think Sony had just plain squandered a real resource that would have given them a more compelling experience.

Sony has a Massive Multiplayer Online studio in the form of Sony Online Entertainment. That is something that Microsoft and Nintendo lack. Had they changed up the management, and infused some serious cash. They could have one or two large persistent world experiences to offer on the platform. The beauty of such games is they are fairly popular, have huge replay value, and offer a revenue stream. Factor in the fact that you can't get high end experinences in this genre on the 3DS, Cell Phones, or Tablets, and you have a severe bragging right.

Sony could have sold a million units in Eastern markets on this alone. It would at least give them some breathing room when it came to release schedules, and more importantly it would have given them some much needed play in the pricing of the system. I honestly don't know why they didn't focus this studio on their new portable. It is actually going under utilized. When your running a console business, and a portable business. Expending resources on the PC market doesn't make a lot of sense.

That said it is just too late to do these things considering that the development cycle of such games would probably be longer then Vitas projected life span. I suppose if there is any hope out there it isn't in the games. I know it will tweak some, but Sony should look at copying what Microsoft is doing with their rent to own promotions. I don't think it would be a particularly good idea, but if the problem is install base related. They have to come up with some way to artificially increase the numbers. Even if half the people that opt into such a promotion opt to default out three or four months later.