Was the PS Vita a good system?

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Kyuu said:

First party support isn't really a big reason why the Vita failed.

In 2012, Vita's first full year, Sony released Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, Gravity Rush, Resistance, Everybody's Golf 6, Wipeout 2048, MotorStorm RC and maybe more. Very solid lineup for a company that prioritizes home consoles. Later they had Killzone, Soul Sacrifice/Delta, Freedom Wars and Tearaway among other titles.

The thing is Sony's game just weren't massive sellers at the time, not even on their home consoles. Their only big series were Gran Turismo (10 million+), Uncharted (6-7 million), and LBP (3-6 million). Two of these made it to Vita in year 1 but hardly moved the needle. God of War temporarily died even on home consoles.

What Sony needed to do is pay 3rd party publishers to at least keep some high-profile games like Monster Hunter multiplatform. Monster Hunter was virtually synonymous with PSP in Japan, but Sony allowed it to go Nintendo exclusive. Yokai Watch was intended as a Playstation (PS3) game and also went Nintendo exclusive. Vita never got a GTA, PSP had two timed exclusive ones (ported to PS2 later). In a long list of problems, Vita's 1st party support isn't high on the list. Sony's software wasn't nearly as big as it got from 2018 onwards.

The Vita couldn't have been saved. It was the right call from Sony to focus more on PS4 after the initial wave of failures on Vita. But they could have tried harder to persuade 3rd party into supporting it. The only truly big exclusive it had is a godawful Call of Duty game scoring 33 on Metacritic. P4G sold incredibly well for what it was.

Yeah Monster Hunter going 3DS exclusive was a crushing blow to the Vita, given that the series was a killer app on PSP.

Not sure if I'd say Vita ever got a real killer app at all, come to think of it.