As a Sony fan I wish they had never made Vita

[HappySqurriel]

leo-j said:

HappySqurriel said:
It was good that Sony built a handheld system, it is unfortunate that they produced the PS-Vita ...

Had Sony gone for a more affordable/stripped down pure handheld system, or created a multi-device platform (handheld, phone, tablet) that produced versions of devices that were gaming focused, I think they would be doing far better than they are.

it was good that sony built the vita.. it's by far the best handheld device they have made, and arguably the best handheld gaming device ever on the market.. the problem is.. that they don't market it right/price it too highly.. vita is what is probably making sony the most money right now.. priced at $249 to start.. and they were selling it at profit since launch.. and it's been $249 since launch

With hardware sales of 3.5 Million, and software sales of 9.7 Million (a large portion of which are bundled), I'm positive that Sony is not turning a profit off of the PS-Vita when you account for marketing costs. Back when the PS2, XBox and Gamecube launched Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all bragged that their marketing budgets for these platforms was going to be over $500,000,000 worldwide over their first year; and marketing costs have gone up dramatically over the past decade. Even if Sony was only spending that much on the PS-Vita it works out to being $142 for every system sold.

The videogame industry is a business where you cover the high costs through massive volume over a long period of time. When you sell 100 Million systems and 1 billion units of software the R&D and marketing costs of producing a new system seem relatively small, but when you are crawling along like the PS-Vita even profits turned on selling the hardware do not balance out the massive business costs associated with the platform.

 

Consider that Sony went from a full year profit of $434 Million from their gaming division in 2011 to having lost $45 Million by the end of Q2 2012; and over this period the PS3 and PSP should have continued to be turning a very solid profit, so it likely that the PS-Vita launch cost Sony $250 Million. While we won't know for months, it is plausable that Sony will see similar losses throughout the year and will (likely) have a small loss on their fiscal year.