| You just said it yourself. You buy a system for its flagship games and the downloadable titles are complimentary to your purchase. |
So, you agree with me? :) LBP = touchscreen flagship. Other genre flagships, check. Indie games, check! And then it's a momentum game while more software content appears. I think there's value for consumers Rol.
| Sony doesn't have many mainstream series to begin with. Only Gran Turismo, Uncharted and God of War are able to move around five million copies or more (at least on a home console). LittleBigPlanet is as popular as Ratchet & Clank was when the PSP launched, capable of moving three million units. So Sony has Uncharted this time around, because the announced Gran Turismo for PSP took over five years to be released. The PSP launched at $250, so the price is the same. UMD or flash cards isn't what's important when game prices and battery life remain unchanged or even get worse. Again, putting alternate control methods in the hardware is meaningless when there's no software released that really improves the experience. The PSV is basically the same as the PSP, only that this time around consumers and the gaming industry aren't as welcoming of the platform. This time the handheld has to prove itself before people buy into it. |
If Sony managed to sell 60 Million PS3s, there must be a market somewheres, even with those few flaships. And that's with MS competition. Granted this is a handheld, but what I'm trying to say is that the appeal is there with UC imho. It's not a niche title, it's really a blockbuster, a bit like a big upcoming hollywood movie. That's litterally how I perceive it, until I get my hands on the game. But imagine if I haven't played UC and I feel this way about it, what that means about their marketing, their packaging, the screens. They are attactive, portable no portable! To me at least, and as it seems to a few others on here who weren't interested in the PSP either.
Ok @ UMD... it was a lesson learnt, that's all I was saying. Flash cartridges are more in line with what Ninty is doing, less scary to regular consumers, and probably less expensive to manufacture. I consider it a lesson learnt, for what it's worth.
@Alternate controls. We don't know, but if M.U.G.E.N.'s thread is any indicator, many games are making use of these control features.
@tougher-times. Granted PS brand has lost its luster, but that doesn't reduce my lessons learnt argument. I fully agree with this though, so we're on the same page here.
| You greatly overestimate the appeal of Uncharted and people can indeed hold out for a couple of years. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is the prime example of this. That game was a full fledged MGS title and flopped in the West. Also, the popularity of the series is in the same range as Uncharted's. |
Peace Walker does have appealing graphics for a PSP game, but they were ultimately PSP graphics. In general folks were not too impressed with PSP graphics, so how could they expect Peace Walker to be any different? Uncharted has staggeringly beautiful visuals, and is a flagship 1st party game. I mentioned this before, I am not a fan of PSP graphics. The Vita is very different. Sports well-aging visuals (better than 3DS graphics, and those are fine 1 gen behind), a very nice screen, HD, OLED, with a larger surface. It destroys the PSP in the graphics compartment, even relative to gen. This is why I think a game like Metal Grea PW didn't fly. Even if it had good graphics for its platform, the platform itself wasn't appealing. It's shallow, but it's true. I don't know, to me there were just too many jaggies in the PSP graphics. Mind you I mostly look at screens to see if I'm interested. But you can be sure those Golden Abyss screen yell "I'm sexy" from every angle of 'em. I'm the same person, so I'm telling you the graphics changed, not me. They are much more appealing to me than the PSP graphics were at their respective time.
You can't mess around with consumer confidence. Once they have experiences on your system they don't like, it's bye bye. The PSP had a failure of a launch, software-wise. They launched cheap software with little appeal. I don't see the same happening for the Vita, not here in the West at least.
| Aren't smartphones the way to go for touchscreen gaming? I suppose so, so Sony's timing and marketing is wrong this time around too. |
Better late than never is how I see it. It is bad timing, but it's better than not doing it. Then you would have said Sony doesn't learn from the past. ;)
| Monster Hunter sells better on portables, because the game is vastly superior on them. Online gaming is almost a non-factor in Japan while local multiplayer is widely popular. That's an important thing to note. |
Fair enough.
| Is Uncharted: Golden Abyss superior to Uncharted on home consoles? Absolutely not. What about Call of Duty? No. Assassin's Creed? Nope. And knowing that, it makes it all the easier to wait for a possible and probable port to a home console. |
Not superior, but in terms of game depth, inferior? We don't know. Yes it's a side-story, but it can still be AAA. Graphically? Not in a dramatic way inferior to what is being offered in UC today, and the next gen will not provide a substantial boost imho. And remember, it's on a small screen. It just looks nicer in general. (Sorry, I love portables :D)
