If a COD game didn't affect sales very much nothing will.

Dude, taking only the mean is literally taking things out of context. You need other statistical numbers (SD, Median, sample size, min, max and region)  to get the real picture of what the average means. Also, you should always take studies with a grain of salt and it's completely retarded of you to tell me to blindly trust 'reputable market research groups'  studies without looking at their premise .

Honestly, Develop shouldn't even post that news if all they have to work with is the average. It's terrible in journalism and professionalism.

We need to calculate the 'minutiae' out because you overblown your estimate to the cost to make a mobile console game. I don't believe any developer would quintuple the cost of the game to marketing and administrative purposes. If you have stastical data to prove me wrong, here is your chance.

So going back on topic: The real reason why you think Vita would fail is because you believe people would only buy high-budget-AAA-fps on vita and any one who enjoys other genre and gamefroms are not 'intelligent'.

I think with your mentality, it is no suprise that the 360 failing to capture market outside of the US. You literally pigeon hole out any low cost develoeprs and any innovation to console/mobile gaming.

Now you are trying to be intentionally oblique. I sussed out the best possible source. Data provided by a reputable research firm, and if professionals and companies trust their analysis. Including major national television news outlets. Then as a lay person it should be good enough for you. We aren't talking about any doubt here. We are talking about what amounts to reasonable doubt, and this data passes that smell test with flying colors. Sites like 1up positively wreak in comparison, but you didn't have problems with propping them up as proof of your claims.

I also take issue with your proxy attack of trying to discredit Develop. You didn't even seem to know about this site until I brought it to your attention, and a couple paragraph blurb about market analysis grade information that was provided to them. Doesn't qualify as poor professionalism or journalism. They didn't offer up a commentary. They just relayed some interesting factual evidence they received. Don't attack the innocent, because you are having problems articulating a good argument.

No my estimates aren't overblown. You just don't like what they mean. You want to hide within miniscule details that deep down you know add up to at least what I proposed. You probably know that the physical media for this device probably costs about five dollars per cart, and that packaging probably costs a dollar. You probably know that Sony's own licensing fees cost a few dollars per copy, and that a decent marketing campaign. Including print, television, internet, and other promotions. Probably cost millions of dollars. You know all of this, but you will just run and hide behind the fact that this information isn't public. Regardless of how reasonable the numbers are.

I have seen this little game played before countless times. You just want to nitpick and fritter away precious time. In the vain hope that if you screw around long enough ignoring the big picture. That it will somehow magically go away. Which is that big games cost big money, and they sell big amounts accordingly. Cheaper games will sell less on the whole. So the situation just scales up and down, but the trend remains. You haven't dug up anything that couldn't be spat out on a first search attempt.

By the way I didn't bring other genres of games into this discussion or other platforms for that matter. You are once again attacking by proxy. The 360 doesn't have shit to do with this, and neither do first person shooters, and I don't have to go out of my way to defend commentary that I didn't make. Which you probably wish I had. It is kind of funny that the first part of your commentary is on topic, but the last bit is actually off topic. I also never questioned the personal taste of any one else, and I sure as hell didn't call anyone stupid.

All I have done is given the owners the credit they deserve. Sony are the ones who marketed this platform as a console on the go. I didn't create the justification for this hardware. Sony created the justification. That they ought to try to live up to. The owners shouldn't settle for less, and they shouldn't have to. Maybe you are happy with the idea of lowering the bar, but Sony are the ones who set the bar high to begin with.

You didn't 'suss' out the best possible source, you 'sussed' out a ' a couple paragraph blurb about market analysis grade information'. How is this different than me telling you "Oh hey, I just got M2 to do a market research, and they say vita games only cost 1 penny to make". Wouldn't you want to see this market research that I claimed to have, or you're just going to believe me because I put 'M2 market reasearch' in my statement? My 1UP article has a link to their source. You can verify the source and come up with your conclusion. I can't verify Develop's sources so I take it with a large grain of salt. If you want to give me other sources, I am happy to look a them.

Again, your estimate is based on ' a couple paragraph blurb about market analysis grade information'. Sure, I'll let you price media to be $5, packing cost a 1$ and $3 for licencing.. you ship how much? 500k copies? Thats 4.5 million dollars? How much does development cost? I'll put you at $5 million for your AAA game even though I have proof that companies range from 600k -> 1.2 milion. So that brings you to 9.5 million dollar.. and now you're going to tell me marketing is going to take 10.5million dollars to reach your low end budget of 20 million dollars? Does this even make sense to you? If a developer only plans to ship 500k copies, they don't spend 10+ million on marketing.

I don't know where you come up with the idea that cheap games will sell less. Pokemon/Mario/Hatsune Miku/Wii Sport are definetly not big cost games but they sell big amounts. Are you going to convince me that it takes 60million dollars to make Mario Kart?

Lets see what you wrote:

You are saying reasonably intelligent people would not buy the device to play 2D dungeon crawler or puzzle games. Am I wrong to infer "you believe people would only buy high-budget-AAA-fps on vita and any one who enjoys other genre and gamefroms are not 'intelligent'"? I admit you didn't mention fps, so i apologize for that.

The Xbox360 comment was mine, in no way did I infer that it was your 'commentary'.

Anyways, my point still stand that your entire argument is based off this gamer mentality that people would only buy games thats AAA console budget but I think i've already given plenty of examples of successful mobile console games that contradicts your reasoning. If you want to still use this argument, you will need to justify your premis a bit more.

Get rid of Vita rename it PFP, get the galges on there.

PFP? What does that mean?

It's a reference. Oh and it means Play Field Personal. 

But the vita unfortunately isn't anyway near as good as a tablet/phablet at these tasks (the browser is slow .. but the backtouchpad scrolling it quite nice) and because there is hardly any 3rd party apps there is no way to improve it.

That's why I hoped that Sony would make it a double-boot device with android as second OS, as that would've made it far more versatile and a much easier buy to me. In the end I did pick it up (far below rrp), but only because I got a cheap 7" china tablet that is able to handle tasks other than gaming (like pdf reader/manga reader/ surfing/ painting/ media player that easily plays all my videos - even on TV).

On the other hand this might have made it easier to hack and traditional console/handheld publishers might fear the competition of ~$1 games and Sony the competition of the Google Play Store.

I'm confused. The Vita doesn't have a 7 inch screen. Some sites on my 7 inch are uncomfortable to read, but for the most part basically OK. My 10 inch is quite comfortable. I used to use my phone for reading internet in the morning, but I quit and bought a tablet because to be honest, it was hard on my patience sometimes trying to zip around the screen (and browser incapabilities). lol

I just think Sony needs to make a stronger selling point for the Vita's capabilities and possibilities as a ultimate gaming device and leave all the other bells and whistles as additionals... that needs to be it's primary focus. Adding Android would open some of the market, but there are so many android devices out there that honestly the market is getting saturated. I think even Nikon released an android camera... and those devices that do all the other stuff better for cheaper than the Vita. Like a good tablet, the most popular form factor being the 7 inch, would be signficantly cheaper than the Vita. To me, those bells and whistles then are hard to take seriously when considering all other options... just seems like it detracts away from the main focus point... the games.

Nintendo 3DS may not have the same graphics capabilities, but when I hold it in my hand, I think fully recognizeable gaming device. And with the support it has, we know it will stretch it's potential in it's lifetime. I'm not so sure I can say that for Vita... it feels somewhat all over the place, the focus Sony has put on the user experience anyway. And this is just a first impression thing, not that the 3DS is necessarily better at gaming or anything... to me, the Vita's identity is in crisis.

I would be more excited about the Vita if it felt it was all around great gaming device... if it to me felt like I was getting an upgrade from the PSP, not just a replacement of the same experience, but with more media add-ons and better graphics... to me, I don't see VITA, specifically... what is Vita? I see a PSP with some technological upgrades, but no real life or draw to the device. I feel like the games are not necessarily better than PSP. They look better than PSP... but how is Vita pushing itself out there to be noticed as a unique gaming device? What makes Vita games different than the PSP besides obvious graphics upgrades? If so, is this being made clear to the customer?

To me, it's main identity just screams multimedia device when I see and think about it. That's the higher price tag. I know this doesn't seem right, but I have to wonder if I am not alone in that perspective. I mean you don't hear about the games... you hear about all the things it can do," look, for $350 you get like these many features..."... but how well does it do games? Besides graphical upgrades, how does it stand out? When I game, what good will those features do me for example?... it's just some thoughts I've had. To me, this is why the device struggles so much... it's trying too hard to be master of all and it's losing it's brand recognition and gaming personality in the process.

Other things nag me, like these should not be a problem... Like no UMD drive, these tiny little please lose me in the closet somewhere cartridges (a minus for me anyway), and memory that even at 32GB I worry if it could hold all my games anyway... forget it being expensive... 32GB doesn't hold much if you have any real sort of collection.

My two tabs, my phones each have 32GB cards in them, Class 10 actually... and I carry all my music, books, pictures, video, everything... I photograph, sometimes record EVERYTHING. I carry 3000-5000 pictures on my device at any one point. There's no way Vita could replace those... especially the camera... Not to mention, I use a lot of the space I do have as I like to keep a considerable amount of music. If I added games to that, I would have no space and hardly any games... and actually, it's well known that cards at near full capacity will kill your flash cards much quicker. So I can't imagine those features being selling points if even just my phone does a way better job...

Anyway, it is only my opinion. Obviously Sony has to do something different to make a bigger case for Vita to sell better as a system...

EDIT: In conclusion, to me, it just doesn't stand out enough. It's an expensive piece of gaming equipment. But why should I want it except for one or two games? It needs to be obvious to the customer this a new, shiny game system, taking handheld gaming way out there... you want this, you need this and cannot find this experience anywhere else

@wlakiz

I fully supported my conclusions, and I did so with the best data available. Which was provided by a reputable firm to a reputable site. Your attempts to discredit the source and the purveyor are purely laughable. Some sources are just plain indisputable. You shouldn't be a sore loser about this. You should be happy that you are better informed now then you were before. You are going to become more knowledgeable about the subject in the future.

I know you think you have a case when it comes to averages, but it isn't the case that you think it is. For your own pricing schemes to be valid. That must mean that there are a number of terribly expensive games that have been developed for the platform to raise the average that high. You are basically proving my point for me. Either this platform has a number of painfully expensive outliers, or the majority of games actually cost that much to make.

You don't have a point when it comes to advertising either. There is a direct correlation between marketing and sales. Strong advertising results in strong sales. Weak advertising results in weak sales. The most popular form of advertising is television advertising, and that costs upwards of ten thousand dollars per thirty second spots on even semi popular cable networks at peak hours. Even a modest advertising campaign can cost a company five million dollars.

I sense you are going to try to argue that they could advertise at non peak hours, or on poorly received channels, or poorly received programs, and you are right they could. It wouldn't be terribly effective though. In fact it might be counter productive. They have to target their key demographics, or it will not have the desired effect. Gamers are many times more likely, and in larger numbers to watch a wrestling event. Then they are to watch a rerun of Little House on the Prairie. Even targeted internet advertising costs real money.

As for the rest I have explained it to you, and it doesn't need to be repeated. You are just intent on not listening. I will however give it one more go. If you are spending three hundred plus dollars on a platform. For the exact same experience as can be had on a platform that is a couple hundred dollars cheaper. Then you are getting well and truly fleeced. Most gamers are intelligent enough to see that they shouldn't pay a premium for a generic service. The justification for this platform is high end games, and low end cheap and easy games aren't a substitute. I would say the same for any other platform if someone was arguing that they could.

This platform cannot, and will not gain traction if this is going to be the library on tap. This has nothing to do with personal preferences. There is room for some, but it cannot be the focus of this platform. Sony is selling a specific experience, and marketing their product as the home of that experience. If they aren't delivering that. Then they are going to get judged harshly. High end platforms are for high end games.

Lastly get off your first person shooter trip. I never brought it up, and I never equated it with AAA gaming. That is all your own doing. There are a lot of AAA games in a lot of genres. Last I checked The Elder Scrolls, Gran Tourismo, Mario, Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, and God of War. Were in fact AAA franchises that weren't specifically about gun play, or even a first person perspective. Do me the service of not placing your prejudices on top of my words.