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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Vita autopsy: What Went Wrong?

 

What was the biggest reason for the Vita's failure?

Not enough advertising 37 11.04%
 
Not enough games 89 26.57%
 
Too expensive (Including memory cards) 96 28.66%
 
The 3DS was just too mighty 73 21.79%
 
Other 40 11.94%
 
Total:335
curl-6 said:
small44 said:

That's why best selling games on vita are the games you call console like games,for me there's no console like or handheld like games

"best selling games on Vita" is a very relative statement, it's highest selling game tops out at just 1.27m, even Wii U with its smaller install base has 6 games that have sold more than that.

Over 50% of Vita game sales are digital, mind.



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small44 said:
curl-6 said:
small44 said:

That's why best selling games on vita are the games you call console like games,for me there's no console like or handheld like games

"best selling games on Vita" is a very relative statement, it's highest selling game tops out at just 1.27m, even Wii U with its smaller install base has 6 games that have sold more than that.

Still selling better then what you call handheld like games

Still not exactly great sales.



Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:
Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:
No big AAA IP on it that's the only real reason why it fail


If only Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, FIFA, etc. were big AAAs. :c

I seriously don't understand how people ever got it in their heads that this was the problem. It has that problem now because of lack of initial sales. But it had great AAA support at launch and still wasn't selling well in spite of that.


Do you  think 5 games will change something,xbox1 and ps4 is getting at least 1 AAA game in a month


There were many times more than just five. lol Ignoring your litote, however, we ought to consider a few things.

 

1. Uncharted GA is a bigger AAA exclusive launch titke than what the PS4 and Xbone received.

 

2. The 3DS definitely doesn't get a AAA hit every month. Not even close.

 

3. The Vita had much bigger early AAA support than the 3DS had, yet couldn't keep up in sales and eventually lost much of that support.

 

Awareness and market positioning were/are the Vita's fundamental problems.

1-call of duty,fifa,assasin creed are all bigger even if they are not exclusive

2-nintendo first party are always stronger then playstation,playstation was success was always depending of 3rd party support Nintendo no

Where is Monster hunter games,where is mgs games where is final fantasy spin off games,where is gta,where is god of war,gran turismo,Daxter,Midnigh club,Burnout,Tekken and all other AA games



PS4 - over 100 millions let's say 120m
Xbox One - 70m
Wii U - 25m

Vita - 15m if it will not get Final Fantasy Kingdoms Heart and Monster Hunter 20m otherwise
3DS - 80m

It had no market outside of Japan.

Sony could have dragged it out in the West a little longer by splashing cash on big 3rd party franchises, but decided not to.



small44 said:
Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:
Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:
No big AAA IP on it that's the only real reason why it fail


If only Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, FIFA, etc. were big AAAs. :c

I seriously don't understand how people ever got it in their heads that this was the problem. It has that problem now because of lack of initial sales. But it had great AAA support at launch and still wasn't selling well in spite of that.


Do you  think 5 games will change something,xbox1 and ps4 is getting at least 1 AAA game in a month


There were many times more than just five. lol Ignoring your litote, however, we ought to consider a few things.

1. Uncharted GA is a bigger AAA exclusive launch titke than what the PS4 and Xbone received.

2. The 3DS definitely doesn't get a AAA hit every month. Not even close.

3. The Vita had much bigger early AAA support than the 3DS had, yet couldn't keep up in sales and eventually lost much of that support.

Awareness and market positioning were/are the Vita's fundamental problems.

1-call of duty,fifa,assasin creed are all bigger even if they are not exclusive

2-nintendo first party are always stronger then playstation,playstation was success was always depending of 3rd party support Nintendo no

Where is Monster hunter games,where is mgs games where is final fantasy spin off games,where is gta,where is god of war,gran turismo,Daxter,Midnigh club,Burnout,Tekken and all other AA games

1. True, but the Vita has all of those as well.

2. Yes, some of Nintendo's flagships (especially handheld flagships) are more mainstream brands than Sony's, leading to larger single-game sales. The PlayStation platforms have always made up for this with far more good games and far more variety, coupling Sony's more diverse first-party with an onslaught of third-party and now indie support. I definitely agree that, in the handheld space, Nintendo have the natural one-up. Just look at how the very successful PSP still sold well under the DS.

3. Nintendo played one of the most aggressive moneyhatting strategies we've ever seen, and it worked. They bought out Monster Hunter (the PSP's kingpin) and many other series. Meanwhile, because the 3DS is about 1.5 generations behind the Vita in technology, game development for it is much cheaper. Thus, they could convince risk-averse publishers to jump to them instead. Meanwhile, this left the Vita to become an indie and niche haven.

What you're proposing would require Sony to pay out hundrends of millions of dollars for new Vita games. And that would be huge! But if they lost money, it wouldn't really be better. Sony are more aware of this choice and what it involves than all of us combined are.



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Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:
Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:
Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:
No big AAA IP on it that's the only real reason why it fail


If only Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, FIFA, etc. were big AAAs. :c

I seriously don't understand how people ever got it in their heads that this was the problem. It has that problem now because of lack of initial sales. But it had great AAA support at launch and still wasn't selling well in spite of that.


Do you  think 5 games will change something,xbox1 and ps4 is getting at least 1 AAA game in a month


There were many times more than just five. lol Ignoring your litote, however, we ought to consider a few things.

1. Uncharted GA is a bigger AAA exclusive launch titke than what the PS4 and Xbone received.

2. The 3DS definitely doesn't get a AAA hit every month. Not even close.

3. The Vita had much bigger early AAA support than the 3DS had, yet couldn't keep up in sales and eventually lost much of that support.

Awareness and market positioning were/are the Vita's fundamental problems.

1-call of duty,fifa,assasin creed are all bigger even if they are not exclusive

2-nintendo first party are always stronger then playstation,playstation was success was always depending of 3rd party support Nintendo no

Where is Monster hunter games,where is mgs games where is final fantasy spin off games,where is gta,where is god of war,gran turismo,Daxter,Midnigh club,Burnout,Tekken and all other AA games

1. True, but the Vita has all of those as well.

2. Yes, some of Nintendo's flagships (especially handheld flagships) are more mainstream brands than Sony's, leading to larger single-game sales. The PlayStation platforms have always made up for this with far more good games and far more variety, coupling Sony's more diverse first-party with an onslaught of third-party and now indie support. I definitely agree that, in the handheld space, Nintendo have the natural one-up. Just look at how the very successful PSP still sold well under the DS.

3. Nintendo played one of the most aggressive moneyhatting strategies we've ever seen, and it worked. They bought out Monster Hunter (the PSP's kingpin) and many other series. Meanwhile, because the 3DS is about 1.5 generations behind the Vita in technology, game development for it is much cheaper. Thus, they could convince risk-averse publishers to jump to them instead. Meanwhile, this left the Vita to become an indie and niche haven.

What you're proposing would require Sony to pay out hundrends of millions of dollars for new Vita games. And that would be huge! But if they lost money, it wouldn't really be better. Sony are more aware of this choice and what it involves than all of us combined are.

I don think Sony bougth anything in psp generation and they expected to have this support without paying anything.

Vita is even have games that release in all consoles like skylanders tap team

 

I looked to first year chart of psp and psp had a constant release of games that why psp sell well



PS4 - over 100 millions let's say 120m
Xbox One - 70m
Wii U - 25m

Vita - 15m if it will not get Final Fantasy Kingdoms Heart and Monster Hunter 20m otherwise
3DS - 80m

small44 said:

I don think Sony bougth anything in psp generation and they expected to have this support without paying anything.

Vita is even have games that release in all consoles like skylanders tap team

 

I looked to first year chart of psp and psp had a constant release of games that why psp sell well

Indeed, they didn't buy much except for their own first-party support. They generally don't employ that strategy as much and definitely didn't expect it to be necessary when they launched the Vita.

The PSP offered much lower dev costs and could basically inherit PS2 engine technologies. The Vita, on the other hand, has costs comparable to PS3 titles... And we all know that the seventh gen represented soaring costs compared to the sixth gen.

So, while Sony funded many games and got some third-parties on board early on with the Vita, its other problems (poor name, minimal and bad advertising, smartphone competition, memory cards, etc.) prevented it from taking off very well. Then, with sales looking rather meh and dev costs still very high, big publishers abandoned ship, leaving the Vita to Sony's first-party, indies, some multiplats, and Japanese devs. 

The only way the Vita could have maintained its AAA game flow would have been with skyrocketing sales, and all of the other challenges prevented sales from ever skyrocketing. Without the sales, the dev costs were too much of a risk to justify.



I know my reply might be out of left field, but I'd have to say that it was PS+ that killed the Vita. PS+ and its instant library pretty much ensured that there would be no need to go out and buy games. Because of this 3rd party devs would see next to nothing from sales, because their fanbase would just say 'Meh. I'll wait until its free on PS+.' Almost everyone who has read a vita article, or a vita review has seen this comment.
This means that 3rd party devs would see next to nothing in sales outside of japan. Then due to a lack of sales most 3rd party pubs or indie devs would end up with no choice but to put their game on ps+ because it was the only way they could get money at all. And the cycle would continue.

Because of this, fewer big games and even fewer first party games would appear on the Vita. Why would you make a big game for the Vita if all that is going to happen is their fans ignore it until its free? Sony declared that the AAA model doesn't work on Vita. Because as publishers they went through the same thing as the 3rd party publishers. In the end it dwindled away to a few japanese games and a bunch of indies.



Zackasaurus-rex said:
small44 said:

I don think Sony bougth anything in psp generation and they expected to have this support without paying anything.

Vita is even have games that release in all consoles like skylanders tap team

 

I looked to first year chart of psp and psp had a constant release of games that why psp sell well

Indeed, they didn't buy much except for their own first-party support. They generally don't employ that strategy as much and definitely didn't expect it to be necessary when they launched the Vita.

The PSP offered much lower dev costs and could basically inherit PS2 engine technologies. The Vita, on the other hand, has costs comparable to PS3 titles... And we all know that the seventh gen represented soaring costs compared to the sixth gen.

So, while Sony funded many games and got some third-parties on board early on with the Vita, its other problems (poor name, minimal and bad advertising, smartphone competition, memory cards, etc.) prevented it from taking off very well. Then, with sales looking rather meh and dev costs still very high, big publishers abandoned ship, leaving the Vita to Sony's first-party, indies, some multiplats, and Japanese devs. 

The only way the Vita could have maintained its AAA game flow would have been with skyrocketing sales, and all of the other challenges prevented sales from ever skyrocketing. Without the sales, the dev costs were too much of a risk to justify.

3rd party abondonned psp later even when it sale was really good so even if Vita skyrocked i doubt 3rd party would support it has a game like skylanders release in all platform new and old one except Vita,Vita would have it's sales skyrocking if 3rd party released constant flow of games.

Vita has a good support only in it's first week and all console sale drop after it's launch

Really who care about name consoles,i hear that psp had also bad advertising it's still sold well,psp had memory card problem too i bought my PSP in 2005 and you know what it come with a 32mb memory card and i bought a second one 1gb for 200$ if it didn't affect PSP i don't see why it will affect Vita



PS4 - over 100 millions let's say 120m
Xbox One - 70m
Wii U - 25m

Vita - 15m if it will not get Final Fantasy Kingdoms Heart and Monster Hunter 20m otherwise
3DS - 80m

bunchanumbers said:
I know my reply might be out of left field, but I'd have to say that it was PS+ that killed the Vita. PS+ and its instant library pretty much ensured that there would be no need to go out and buy games. Because of this 3rd party devs would see next to nothing from sales, because their fanbase would just say 'Meh. I'll wait until its free on PS+.' Almost everyone who has read a vita article, or a vita review has seen this comment.
This means that 3rd party devs would see next to nothing in sales outside of japan. Then due to a lack of sales most 3rd party pubs or indie devs would end up with no choice but to put their game on ps+ because it was the only way they could get money at all. And the cycle would continue.

Because of this, fewer big games and even fewer first party games would appear on the Vita. Why would you make a big game for the Vita if all that is going to happen is their fans ignore it until its free? Sony declared that the AAA model doesn't work on Vita. Because as publishers they went through the same thing as the 3rd party publishers. In the end it dwindled away to a few japanese games and a bunch of indies.

But isn't ps+ even offer ps3 and ps4 games why it would kill vita and not ps3 and ps4



PS4 - over 100 millions let's say 120m
Xbox One - 70m
Wii U - 25m

Vita - 15m if it will not get Final Fantasy Kingdoms Heart and Monster Hunter 20m otherwise
3DS - 80m