PSVita: Remote Play, Current state and the Future.

[JWeinCom]

Profit is not all that matters and profit is not going to keep you in business forever.

Think of it from a store's perspective. I make money for each Vita game sold. So, having a Vita section makes me a profit. But, that Vita section takes up a lot of store space. What if I could use that space to stock something else that will bring in more profit? In that case, bye bye Vita.

Then, think of it from Sony's perspective. How much is the Vita making? How much of my resources are being devoted towards the Vita? What else could I be using the developers, marketing budget, and factories for? This is called opportunity costs. The Vita needs not just to make a profit, but make more profit than the next viable option. As it stands in terms of hardware and software sales, it is hard to imagine that the Vita is the best option for the Vita right now.

In home remote play is not a major feature. Just ask Nintendo. Sony initially made it seem like you could play the Vita more or less anywhere that you had Wifi which would have been really awesome. But, the reality is that it is a rather limited service. Maybe Playstation Now will make better use of the Vita, but I don't think it will work very well if the PSVita is only OK at streaming from the PS4.

The PSP Vita comparison is not apt. The PSP was beaten soundly by the DS, but it was successful in its own right in hardware and software. The PSP had 52 million sellers. The DS had 129. The 3DS has 25 so far. The Vita has one. You can factor in PSPlus stuff and digital sales, but even so that's absolutely terrible. If we assume every game sold 50% digitally and 50% retail, we still only have 6 million sellers which means only 6 games have sold more than 500,000 retail. Vita software in 2013 was roughly a third of what PSP software was in 2006. Of the top 100 selling games of 2013 0 were released on the Vita.

The Vita is just doing really really poorly, and it's hard to imagine a scenario where the Vita division is worthwhile to Sony as a whole. It's hard to see why retailers would continue stocking it or its games in the US, and it's hard to see why Sony would be motivated to develop anything with the intention of release outside of Japan. It's hard to imagine the Vita is the best use of Sony's time, money, and energy.