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Forums - Sony - Do you think Vita had nothing to show at E3?

orniletter on 19 June 2013
forest-spirit said:

The price was only good when the Vita and the 3DS cost the same, but then the 3DS got a price cut and all of a sudden $250 weren't that good of a price anymore. Plus, you have to factor in the expensive memory cards.


This is the pink elephant in the room: Nobody knew about those cash-grab-memory cards when they lauded the price point ! 200 Euro for the Vita alone is a good/realistic price, 100 Euro for a 32GB memory card ? Certainly not !



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dahuman on 19 June 2013

What is this Vita that you speak of? :P



Anari on 19 June 2013
Ajescent said:
Anari said:
Ajescent

This ties in with the point I'm getting at.

People complain that the ____ doesn't have any games yet when games are presented be they multies or more importantly exclusives, they find something else to complain about.

My arguement is at some point people need to realise that the console is not the problem, it's consumers themselves.

Are you really, seriously trying to suggest it's the consumers' fault Vita isn't doing well?

When the Vita was announced, people lawded it for having a good price and a great batch of games during release I seem to recall people saying it had the most launch titles since ever.

So to recap.

Nice hardware

good price

quantity of games

So...what happened?

Consumers chose not to buy it. Makers of products can only do so much, if consumers choose not to buy something, there's little that's going to change that.

Those people were mostly forum Sony fans and i'm sure most of them already owned the Vita.

Their opinion obviously didn't reflect the opinion of most consumers out there.



Ajescent on 19 June 2013
forest-spirit said:
Ajescent said:

When the Vita was announced, people lawded it for having a good price and a great batch of games during release I seem to recall people saying it had the most launch titles since ever.

So to recap.

Nice hardware

good price

quantity of games

So...what happened?

Consumers chose not to buy it. Makers of products can only do so much, if consumers choose not to buy something, there's little that's going to change that.


Vita got a lot of praise from forum-dwellers, yes, but you have to realise that we're talking about a minority here. Even if most of those praising the system bought it, it wouldn't translate into that many sales.

The price was only good when the Vita and the 3DS cost the same, but then the 3DS got a price cut and all of a sudden $250 weren't that good of a price anymore. Plus, you have to factor in the expensive memory cards.

And the system certainly had a lot of games at launch but it lacked system sellers. Having a lot of games won't mean much if the target audiences of those games are small.

So no, it's not the consumers fault that Vita is where it is. If you should blame anyone you should blame Sony for not putting in more effort into taking the system out of the niche cave it currently resides in (assuming that's what we want here).


Not just forum dwellers, it got praise from journalists and analysts as well. I'm talking specifically about after its E3 reveal.

Aside: If consumers are easily swayed by a price cut I think that says a lot more about consumers than anything else. 

You say the Vita lacks "system sellers" I see people say that all the time but what exactly does that mean? Do we mean big block busters that shows of a console's feature Or shows you why a console is unique?

Uncharted GA did that 

Do you mean a well known franchise that has a huge following?

COD: classified and AssCreed had those

And that's just naming 3 games.

There is no defining checklist of what makes a system seller. So people keep saying "It lacks system sellers" makes no sense.

The Vita has a huge library of games that caters to every taste, from "system sellers" to "AAA" to yearly releases, to Indies, to mobile but yet, no one is buying it.

The Vita could come tomorrow with a £25 price cut, people will still ignore it.

I still see this arguement with the PS3, the ps3 costs about half what it did when it launched and has more games than sense, yet people still say:

"I'll get when after a price cut."

"Or, I'll get one when Last Guardian/Agent/Versus comes out."

Completely forgetting the rediculously large library of games that came out before.

The hardware is good, the library is good, the price is good. yet people still choose to ignore it.

At what point, do we turn to the consumers and say "Seriously people, what the hell is going on?"

Blaming Sony and the game devs/publishers etc is easy but the consumers play just as big a part as the others.



PS One/2/p/3slim/Vita owner. I survived the Apocalyps3/Collaps3 and all I got was this lousy signature.


Xbox One: What are you doing Dave?

Ajescent on 19 June 2013
RolStoppable said:
Ajescent said:

(...)

At what point, do we turn to the consumers and say "Seriously people, what the hell is going on?"

Blaming Sony and the game devs/publishers etc is easy but the consumers play just as big a part as the others.

You never blame consumers, especially in this case where we are talking about a platform that is already getting abandoned by its manufacturer. It's easy (and the right thing) to blame Sony, because they seem to be content with letting their platform die.

Compare Nintendo's treatment of the Wii about the last 1/3 of its life and MS' treatment of the 360 in the last 3-4 years to Sony's treatment of the Vita, I'd the Vita fairs better.

Let's look at it another way, are we not allowed to blame consumers if they rush out enmass to buy a game/product we all know to be technically and critically bad. Whose fault is that?



PS One/2/p/3slim/Vita owner. I survived the Apocalyps3/Collaps3 and all I got was this lousy signature.


Xbox One: What are you doing Dave?

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NintendoPie on 19 June 2013
Ajescent said:

This ties in with the point I'm getting at.

People complain that the ____ doesn't have any games yet when games are presented be they multies or more importantly exclusives, they find something else to complain about.

My arguement is at some point people need to realise that the console is not the problem, it's consumers themselves.

Consumers have always been a problem. It's such an obvious story that no one brings it up anymore. (Other than me. Because I made a thread about it, although not exactly...)

OT: Yes, Vita literally didn't attract anyone at E3. Same story as last year, really. Sony at least knows how to get everyone to forget about it and focus on their "awesome new console."



Ajescent on 19 June 2013
RolStoppable said:
Ajescent said:

Compare Nintendo's treatment of the Wii about the last 1/3 of its life and MS' treatment of the 360 in the last 3-4 years to Sony's treatment of the Vita, I'd the Vita fairs better.

Let's look at it another way, are we not allowed to blame consumers if they rush out enmass to buy a game/product we all know to be technically and critically bad. Whose fault is that?

I'd say 2011/12 for the Wii were comparable to Vita's lifespan so far and if I had to pick a side, I'd take the Wii; the alarming difference is that the Wii was nearing the end of its life (admittedly, greatly accelerated by Nintendo) while the Vita was the new kid on the block. Microsoft's treatment of the 360 in the last 3-4 years was obviously better, because this includes games like Halo 4, Gears of War 3 and Forza 4. It's not like Microsoft could get distracted by another system, because they only had the 360 to take care of.

As for your question, let me answer it with another question. In the case of a fraud, who do you blame: The person who set it up or the person who bought into it?

So if a million+ people fall for a trap, we are not allowed to blame them for some of it? I agree that majority of the blame lies with the fraudster but the victim still needs to own up to some responsibility especially when there have been so many before hand.

But I still stand by my arguement, Sony and developers can only do so much, consumers need to pick up some of the slack themselves.



PS One/2/p/3slim/Vita owner. I survived the Apocalyps3/Collaps3 and all I got was this lousy signature.


Xbox One: What are you doing Dave?

Mandalore76 on 19 June 2013
Ajescent said:
RolStoppable said:

You never blame consumers, especially in this case where we are talking about a platform that is already getting abandoned by its manufacturer. It's easy (and the right thing) to blame Sony, because they seem to be content with letting their platform die.

Compare Nintendo's treatment of the Wii about the last 1/3 of its life and MS' treatment of the 360 in the last 3-4 years to Sony's treatment of the Vita, I'd the Vita fairs better.

Let's look at it another way, are we not allowed to blame consumers if they rush out enmass to buy a game/product we all know to be technically and critically bad. Whose fault is that?

Are you saying that the Vita has entered the last 1/3 of it's life already?



DietSoap on 19 June 2013
Kresnik said:
I don't think they've really got much up their sleeve other than a couple of first party titles and a third party exclusive, though.


I dunno about you, but I would kill for "a couple" at this point, especially considering last year was just 2 first party (Tearaway and Killzone Mercenaries), and one 3rd party exclusive at E3, where we got absolutely NOTHING this time.

E3 really makes me think they killed it in the west. Unless they show just ONE western 1st party exclusive, and just ONE western 3rd party exclusive at Gamescom or PAX, the PS4 focus excuse doesn't fly and they really have abandoned the poor handheld. One newly announced exclusive at E3, just one, would've been enough to signal to me "hey guys, we trying". They couldn't even quickly slip in one.

Thankfully I'm more interested in Japanese games anyways, but still, the sooner it dies in the west, the sooner those localizations will dry up.



Ajescent on 19 June 2013
Mandalore76 said:
Ajescent said:
RolStoppable said:

You never blame consumers, especially in this case where we are talking about a platform that is already getting abandoned by its manufacturer. It's easy (and the right thing) to blame Sony, because they seem to be content with letting their platform die.

Compare Nintendo's treatment of the Wii about the last 1/3 of its life and MS' treatment of the 360 in the last 3-4 years to Sony's treatment of the Vita, I'd the Vita fairs better.

Let's look at it another way, are we not allowed to blame consumers if they rush out enmass to buy a game/product we all know to be technically and critically bad. Whose fault is that?

Are you saying that the Vita has entered the last 1/3 of it's life already?

No...

The point I was obviously making is that Sony is still supporting it contrary to what everyone says.



PS One/2/p/3slim/Vita owner. I survived the Apocalyps3/Collaps3 and all I got was this lousy signature.


Xbox One: What are you doing Dave?