Did the vita focus too much on niche titles?

[MikeRox]

Blob said:

Tearaway was just too late by the time it came out and little big planet just isn't as a big a franchise as people want it to be.

The biggest problem sony had was that a lot of people didn't buy the PSP for games. People bought the PSP for the image, branding and it's non gaming uses. But once the Iphone came out that did everything the PSP did and more it's market dissapeared. Sony then went a head and made a killer (i truly mean that, the vita is the best product sony has put out imo) handheld for the market they thought was there.

This is the big one. PSP was an affodable MP3 and portable Movie player, tasks which have been superceeded by phones and tablets. The biggest mobile software is now also on phones and tablets, even if the lack of physical controls suck, it's not a big barrier to the majority of gamers. It had exclusive versions of most (at the time) mainstream franchises. Then it also had the "lots of free stuffs!" factor when it was hacked.

Vita is great at what it does, and there isn't really any product on the market that can touch it, but what it does is now down to a <10m global market.

Although Nintendo has had great success at putting 3DS hardware out there, a look at Western software charts shows you that beyond Pokemon, Monster Hunter than the Mario staples, there isn't really anything shifting softwarewise in any meaningful quantities either. Which is why the 3DS' release list is as barren as Vitas as far as Western content goes.