Vita’s fight for life: After almost a year, has Sony’s handheld managed to distinguish itself?

[NightDragon83]

Mmmfishtacos said:

NightDragon83 said:
What I simply cannot believe is that after all these years in the industry, and looking at the failures of previous companies' forays into the handheld market attempting to dethrone Nintendo (and usually failing miserably), Sony STILL hasn't gotten one simple fact through their thick skulls... the market for handheld devices dedicated to gaming has always skewed young. And yet Sony continues to by and large ignore the under-13 crowd while trying to appeal to the 20 and 30 something techie / hipster crowd with sleek, powerful handhelds that are jacks of all trades but masters of none.

Nintendo (up until the launch of the 3DS) has always made great handhelds that were...
1: Affordable
2: Durable / good battery life
3: Kid friendly with a library of games to match.

All of Nintendo's competitors released handhelds that were the antithesis to these three things...
1: More expensive
2: Not as durable / poor battery life
3: Not as kid friendly with a poor library of kid friendly games.

Until Sony changes their attitude towards the handheld market, they might as well just give up on it and focus on their home consoles for the time being.

Right because 75 million + psp's is failing.  Going againts everything you stated makes a portable a sucess.  They start off high, and then become pretty cheap.  Vita is a master at all it does.  Expecially compairing it to the 3ds.  Your right in one respect tho, they do need more games for the 13 and under crowed.  Parents will buy anything for their kids if it makes them shut up.  So puting out Kiddy games and advertising the cap out of them during Saturday morning cartoons will do wonders for the device. 

I don't think it was a failure, but compared to 150 million + DS's, I'd say the PSP was definitely a disappointment, especially when you consider how strong the Playstation brand was when it launched compared to Nintendo's sorry state back in '04/'05, unlike today where Sony is no longer king of the hill and the PSV is on life support in some territories while Nintendo has reclaimed the #1 spot.  And the only reason the PSP sold as much as it did was because it was easy to hack and to put homebrew / pirated software on it.  The PSP has been dead in the West, especially North America, for years now, and the Vita looks to be following suit much quicker.  I'm not sure if it's a master at all it does, but it's definitely a master at sitting on store shelves.

And don't be so quick to knock the "kiddy" games and image.  I know its a popular thing to do against Nintendo (see Sony's "babysitter" comment in reference to the DS/3DS), but it's the kiddy looking "babysitter" system with the kiddy games that prints money, not the expensive "cool" and "mature" looking one.  Unfortunately for the Vita though, no amount of "kiddy" games will save it because no parent is going to drop $250 on a handheld for their kid in the first place.  Nintendo learned that the hard way and corrected their mistake by dropping the 3DS's price by $80, and now it's back on top of the weekly sales charts like its predecessor was for the past 6 + years.  Again, cheaper handheld with the bigger and better library of kid-friendly games wins every time.