Otter said:
Wyrdness said:
You compared Vita to two struggling home platforms though I don't think you can act like your argument was a fair comparison either, PS2 outsold GBA and also the PSP even in Japan in its era when the GC was around while PS1 was only outsold by the GB due to the GBC it still however hit 21m and blew away all other portables in the era of the N64 which makes your Vita argument something of a cherry pick to go for GC and N64 when they weren't even the leading platforms back then. Vita didn't have the games you say but it did get a number of games the region liked such as P4 Golden, Atelier games, Disgaea series, Dragon Quest games in builders and heroes, Vanillaware titles like Dragon's Crown, numerous Warriors titles etc... Now compare that to what the N64 and GC got in the region and you'll see that the Vita did as well as it did because it still had the software the region likes which brings up the next point. The success of portables isn't a regional preference thing on hardware as consoles and portables where at one point blow for blow in the region and portables are still doing the same numbers they did before the true reason for the change in home platform performance is that the leading home platform moved away from the games the region like, the PS3 began shifted to a more western style approach Rol pointed it out just fine that the games the region liked weren't being focused on as much or pushed and this has only increased in the following gens. You can call people defensive and say you won't have ears all you want but these are legitimate factors in the market as when you don't cater to a market's preference you begin to fall out of favour no matter what hardware you release this even applies to software itself as seen in games like Final Fantasy which followed suit in being more suited to western tastes and has dropped significantly in presence in the region portables however kept pushing the same type of games the region liked so the result is people migrated more towards them it's not a preference for portable play its the software. The result is the market defaulted to buying portable platforms as that was where most of the games they preferred were on. |
Its not cherry picking or unfair. The Vita's best selling game barely passed 300k in Japan, its also a re-release. We can't compare the likes of Disgaea, Dragon Crown, Persona 4 Golden and Hiku to the far bigger titles we saw home platforms like Smash Bros, Mario Kart, 3D Mario etc. The gamecube also had plenty of niche titles. I'd also argue that many of the niche games like Hiku that flourished on the Vita would struggle far more on a home console. There's inherently different appeal to certain games and play styles, animal crossing for example excels in portable format.
If a home console was limited to PSVita's library, it would of sold abysmally in Japan. That was the telling thing from the hardware comparison
As far as comparing the likes of PS2 to GBA there's obviously a limit to the kind of games a GBA/16bit device can offer, once the handhelds moved to realising 3D worlds it was a wrap. PSP was literally neck and neck with the PS2 sales wise but we can see that the inidvidual selling power of PSP games were far behind their PS2 counterparts. Japanese developers preferring to develop on portable/low spec machines doesn't negate the fact that portables have an advantage in the market, in fact it only reinforces it. The only reason why this is misunderstood is because its being perceived in a Sony vs Nintendo lens.
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Minecraft sold over 1.2mil on the Vita in Japan. And according to famitsu three other games sold over 300k physical alone including P4 Golden.
