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SxyxS on 30 January 2014
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Kresnik said:
badgenome said:

The most frustrating thing is that it's a market that does still exist. The 3DS is doing well enough to show that it does, and the Vita is not so much more expensive as to explain the disparity in sales.

As much as they like to tell themselves that, oh noez the smartphoanz ate that market, Sony launched the Vita with nothing that could reasonably have been expected to shift hardware at any point in time. The PSP would have struggled with this line-up. Uncharted and Gravity Rush were the closest things to system sellers they had for the launch window, and then... nothing. And they had to know that there was nothing. They couldn't have been blindsided by Monster Hunter 4 being 3DS bound and there being no Metal Gear nor Grand Theft Auto nor Final Fantasy on the way. And now that the Vita is coming up on its second year of dismal worldwide sales, the thing has the stink of failure on it to the point that there will be no Metal Gear nor GTA nor Final Fantasy nor any other substantial third party investments ever without heavy incentives from Sony themselves.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that things couldn't be better for Vita had they put more effort in - I think that's absolutely true.  What I'm saying is, for the amount of effort/resources/time they could put in, the proportional gains they would get wouldn't be big enough.   If they threw everything they could realistically get at the device next year - Gran Turismo; God of War; InFAMOUS; Type-0 HD; Ac!d 3 and let's say something 'new' to handhelds like a new Elder Scrolls, I still don't think the ultimate fate of the device would change.

Sony are targeting home console gamers with this console.  Home console gamers game on home consoles.  Nintendo fans game on handhelds and home consoles because they've had 4 generations of being conditioned that that's what they should do if they want to experience the best of what Nintendo have to offer.  Sony have been conditioning people for a generation and a bit, and even most of that was ignored by then aside from a period around launch and another period around 2009.

Things could be better; but I don't think things could ever be "fixed" in the west because the market has changed.  It's easy to pass the blame to Sony because they haven't done anything for the device rather than say "it's smartphones"; but I think both of the factors are the reason it's in this state today.

And that's why all I want them to do is cater to the fanbase which is here with appropriately-budgeted titles that at least keep the device ticking along.  But apparently Yoshida's incompetence at managing release schedules (the more I look at the speight of 2013 PS3 releases, the more it makes me angry) means that every_single_person in SCE WWS has to rush to get a PS4 title out of the door.  Which is absurd, but there you go.

I think you've analysed some things pretty well.Throwing AAA games at vita wouldn't have done so much for vita success as people expect.Maybe 50% more sales ,but not significantly more.The success in Japan is not based on sony AAA games with established ip's.

 

We have a similar situation with nintendo.

Though Nintendo did much more for Wii U than Sony for ps4(because of wii success)

they are failing the same way.

Nintendo almost copied the way to success 1:1 from what they did with 3DS revival.

A 2D mario,an HD Zelda,some Monster Hunter here,some Dragon Quest there,a little bit Luigi.Now a 3D Mario,.And all those ip's are huge in handheld gaming comparable with mgs,gta,gt on consoles.but it still does not work.

+Some exclusives-incl. survival Horror and a Miyamoto exclusiv(Pikmin) and Nintendoland.

This prooves that success on handheld does not mean same success on console.And the same in the opposite direction:Killzone sold 2 million on ps4 but barely 200k on vita(though lot of people say the vita version is better)the same with uncharted.Maybe they'd sell 1mio + vitas with gta or gt but that's just 2 million more units.

it's obvious that you can't repeat success from one olatform to another just with copy&paste.Other strategies are needed.

FF X HD is a good example.Though the ps3 userbase is a lot bigger the vita sales are almost on par with the ps3 version.That's hard to explain as FF usually was the king on consoles .