badgenome said:
Anyway, I guess I'm mostly talking about SCEJ here (which, granted, is not a terribly productive branch anyway). I can understand SCEA and SCEE being quick to write off the Vita, but SCEJ is hugely frustrating for me since I reckon it's really the PSP's success in Japan that precipitated the development of the Vita in the first place, but then they went on to do rather little for it on the software side and, in one of the biggest fuck-ups in the history of fuck-ups, let Monster Hunter get away from them entirely. I'll give them credit for making their few games really impressive, and by all accounts Freedom Wars fits that mold, but it's really a shame that I've never before had to worry about whether or not a Sony platform is going to be supported until now. For as much as they like to blather on about the market changing, while that is true to some extent, I think the more pertinent factor is that Sony suffocated the Vita in the crib with its own disinterest and lack of vision. |
I really don't think you should put the blame entirely on sony here. And what exactly are your expectations out of SCEJ, they have like 4 vita game releases this year, all the while having to support both the vita and ps4. Do you expect one game a month or something? Since when does sony have control over third parties? Third parties will release on whatever console they feel is more attractive financially.
I feel there are so many factors that prevented the vita from taking off that blaming it solely on lack of support from sony is a little shortsighted. These are some of the reasons imo. To be clear, I'm talking mostly about japan's side here since its still viable as a development platform and they can still break even.
1. Lack of long standing franchises that have universal appeal both in the west and east. Most of sony franchises are system sellers in specific regions, thus they have to do twice the work just to attract the same number of buyers as nintendo. Secondly, sony is more prone to producing new ips, as evidenced by Japan studio's output. It's just their strategy and its failing them.
2. Different demographic. They're tagetting two different age groups. The sales reflect the change in buying preference between the two, there's all there is to it. Handhelds are simply not a formfactor desirable by that audience anymore.
3. Different markets. Not only is the target demographic different, the buying habits between the two cannot be anymore clear cut. Note that this is purely based on personal observations and should be treated as such. From what I see of the japan market, there's clearly a divide between how 3ds and vita owners spend their money. 3ds users will mostly buy nintendo franchisees and big names such as YW and MH. Other smaller to mid tier titles rarely do spectacularly. The western equivalent of stereotypical "casual gamers" that buy the next FIFA and COD.(This is for comparison sake. I'm not saying they exist.) On the other hand, vita owners spend their money more evenly among big names and niche titles, the definition of hardcore gamers. In the end, the Japanese market chose the former and hence the result.
4. Sony's western first party games are too ambitious. No big publisher is willing to spend AAA budget on a handheld to sell numbers that are a portion of their console counterpart and at $20 cheaper than their console counterpart. How is such a market feasible and sustainable? No publisher is willing to step up and match consumer expectations that are way too high garnered by sony themselves. There is no wonder in how it failed in the west.
5. And thus begin the domino effect. Vita sells terrible in the west. Naturally, big publishers in Japan that focuses on the international market is not going to support the vita. It's only natural that the vita could not succeed as 3ds does in japan.
So, in the end, which market is more important to you? I will always prefer the latter but the rest of the world prefers the former and soon Japan will follow. That said, having the best of both worlds is still the best and sadly neither Sony and Nintendo have that. But why are we even complaining? The vita market is STILL feasible in Japan. Otherwise, it wouldn't have the software output that it has. If you bother to count, vita has way more than the 3ds, multiplat or not. The only thing its missing are the few big publishers support. You can get another concole for that.
