Otakumegane said:
They never stated this, and I believe they were going for a "Razor and blades" approach, taking a moderate loss on the hardware and making up with Vita card sales. The only thing Sony said was that Vita would be profitable after 3 years. That means they were taking a loss at launch, can't imagine the component prices dropped that quickly. I don't want this to be discontinued, but Sony's been taking losses for a long time, and PS4 is looking also to be sold at a loss for a couple of years. PS4 and Vita (with price cut maybe) losses over the next couple years are going to add up. All AAA development on PS4 currently just screams that we won't be seeing much of Sony 1st party on Vita after the fall titles. They might just be getting ready to pull the plug. The holiday months will be telling. |
Actually, Sony did state they sell the Vita for a profit.
"For Vita, the price on performance was something we definitely wanted to hit, although we all agreed because we are PlayStation, people expect better graphics and prettier pictures, so we have all those things we wanted to achieve in terms of capabilities, but we capped our ambitions with a cost of goods target that we can profitably sell the hardware for $250.
To answer your question, we set out a goal: Yes, we're going to hit the $250 price, and no, we don't want to sell the hardware with a deficit. That's a goal we set out to do and I'm very happy we are achieving that." - Source
At the very least, they were taking a small loss on the $249 SKU, while makig a profit off the $299 SKU and memory cards. Of course, that was back when the Vita launched. I'm sure Sony has been able to cut costs since it's been more than a year after its initial release.
