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greenmedic88 on 12 October 2012
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Solid-Stark said:
superchunk said:
Why isn't it selling?

Its not a mass market product. It a niche product that does its job very well.

I go back to my original statement/thread. It should have been a smartphone.

Keep ALL of its existing features, power, game choices, controls, etc. Just slightly different physical design and of course sold through cell carriers on contract etc. Could even pimp out a new model every other year to align with contract upgrades.

Would have done much better. Would have had a higher profit margin for Sony. Would have been able to be priced like cell phones (in the States at least) on contract with prices from $49 to $199.

Hell, I would have gotten one. Probably one for my oldest kid too.

Sony does not have the first party software to push a niche product like a dedicated gaming console. Only Nintendo has that capability. Smartphones and tablets now rule the entertainment portable market, not gaming consoles. Sony has the experience and capacity to immediately do well in that market and should have went for it.

Don't counter me with PSPGo (a digital only crappy low-end product) or the Xperia Play (a low-end phone with zero gaming support) as reason it wouldn't work. It would have to be the Vita in a slider fully Android phone scenario. i.e. a real high-end smartphone with high-end gaming capability.

Im curious, if it was a phone, would it be getting spec jumps every year? 3 years from now, would early adopters be shunned?(Not be able to buy the latest games)

If it was a phone, I wouldn't have bought one.

The PSP was in a drastic decline for years, be what it was that caused it. The Vita isn't off to a great start. Perhaps the mass market just doesn't want a "Playstation" portable anymore.

Nintendo may have gotten passed the barriers due to much stronger name IP's. But maybe, just maybe, the market is transitioning to tablet and smartphone gaming as the new "portable gaming". And yes I'm talking about sub-$5 (or whatever the average price is) games.

I'm in the same boat. If the PSV was a phone, I would have completely passed over it as a gaming platform. Wouldn't have even considered buying one. Why? My two platform options for smartphones are either iOS or Android (sorry Windows Mobile). And no, I'm not paying for a second two year contract so I can play more games. 

So make the Playstation Vita an Android phone only with buttons and sticks? That's great for Playstation gamers who want to make their portable double as their phone, but no one else looking for a "serious" smartphone is going to pick up the one with the gaming buttons, d-pad and analog sticks unless they're equally "serious" about portable gaming. 

I certainly wouldn't pick up a two year service contract for a PS Vita Phone. 

I would have just been slightly ticked at not being able to play any PSV games that caught my interest on account of not wanting to enter a two year service contract just to do so, but I'd get over it.

The other thing to keep in mind in regards to the PS Vita Phone, is that it remains a viable option. The PSV would be the iPod Touch to the PSV compatible phone's iPhone. SCE wouldn't even have to market it as the "Playstation Vita Phone" since that would limit the target audience. They could just make a smartphone that is compatible with PSV games, using the same SDK with either controls built into the phone (resulting in an Xperia Play like device) or, and probably a better option; design a slick cradle device with a supplementary battery that houses all the physical controls, to be removed when it's simply not appropriate to bust out a phone with joysticks and face buttons on it during a meeting.