RVDondaPC said:
It would be very difficult to sell a bulky phone with buttons that only has a 5-7 hour battery life, not to mention it would cost $500+ dollars and there are a lot of potential customers that would be unwilling to give up their Iphone or Android phone. Also many of those who would be willing are probably already locked into a long term contract, like most people are now days, so it would take a year or so before they even get a chance to consider buying the device.
Though it would be convenient to be able to use your Vita to make phone calls on occasions or not having to carry around two devices, having vita as a separate gaming device allows people to leave it in the car or toss it in your back pack or GF's purse and forget about it, as well as leave it at home all together. As with a phone, most people generally want to have it on them at all times, where ever they go. Because of this much smaller phones are more desirable than something the size of a Vita(And probably why Tablets don't bother getting into the phone market). It would be hard to convince someone to carry around a vita in their pocket on a regular basis.
Sony's bread and butter is selling to gamers and people willing to purchase $30 and $40 dollar gaming experiences atleast a few times a year. If they tried to reach into the Ipad/Iphone/Android market, where games generally cost a few dollars or are even free(That make money on advertisement) they would get very little residual in terms of selling PS VIta games to those people. It's a completely different gaming market. Though I think Sony can sell to those customers it would not be using the Vita as it brings no real value to the majority of those people.
If Sony wanted to sell a gaming device to the casual audience they would have to make games that are designed to play well with no sound, can be picked up and put down in a short period of time without loss of enjoyment, can be played with friends anywhere, doesn't require a big learning curve or lots of buttons to learn, doesn't have long cut scenes or engaging storylines, among other things I can't think of at the moment. In essence it would be designing a device and games that are exactly the opposite of what the Vita is.
I do believe it is possible to sell a sucessful gaming phone, but it would have to be completely different from the PS VIta experience. It would be more along the lines of marketing a phone that happens to do games, not a gaming device that does phone calls. The Xperia was a step in the right direction, but it's a hard sell. One of the biggest challanges is convincing people that they are not buying a gaming device, but still selling them on the perks of their games. As cool as it is in theory to the average person to have a gaming phone, only gaming nerds(I mean that as a badge of honor) or children would want to purchase a phone that is a gaming device because of social reasons. A big portion of Apple's sales alone are because of this social positioning in people's minds. People want to be in the Apple club, it's trendy. Pulling out a gaming phone in many situations such as a first date or a board meeting or interview could make many people feel very self conscious. The fact that the Experia looks like a regular Smart phone when closed helps, but having features that can also sell an Experia as a great phone outside of the gaming would be important. Maybe having an amazing camera, or an extremely long battery life, having NFC or whatever new technology is coming out at the time, etc., would help. I don't believe turing the Vita into a phone would solve any of these problems, and would only take away from what it was intended to be. A gaming device that can sell $30 and $40 gaming experiences to gamers.
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You really need to read the thread I linked. All o fyour concerns are discussed to death.
1) Battery life would be no different than phones now or Vita itself. People adapt to their behaviours and if they play constant to kill battery in 5 or 8 hrs (like what would happen on any phone now and like I've seen many family / friend do) then they'll buy chargers for car/work and deal with it.
2) There already very popular large phones. People who are buying it now would still buy it as the phone or wifi version. People who don't mind thicker phone but want gaming and would not want to carry a 2nd device would buy it to. (this part I fit into)
3) Phones currently cost $500 to $600 now. However, that's why there are contracts and you get them from $0 to $200 easily. This is actually a huge blessing for Sony. They could improve the Vita with bigger battery and built in memory all the while selling it for $500 AT A PROFIT to off contract people or far more like contracted people.
4) $30 to $50 games would still exist and they will exist as mobile devices improve and start offereing PS360 style games by next year. However, with digital distribution, the overall cost of games may decrease as well, win-win for all of us.
5) Its not about selling to a casual audience, its about expanding to your core audience who buys home consoles but doesn't buy portables due to not wanting to carry two expensive media devices. Its about hitting the smartphone/tablet market directly with the best of all of Sony's capabilities.
6) The Xperia Play was a pos from day one. It was a low-end Android phone with no game library support. The Vita is exactly what Play should have been.
Slightly larger for better visuals and controls along with proper Playstation brand/games support, all tied together with an amazing Android smartphone.
(Tab wise, it's specs relative to updates)
