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Forums - Sony Discussion - How the Vita's first 2 years should have looked. 70m LT

 

Where would the Vita be at now if this was its first 2 years?

Still a flop at <10m 33 34.74%
 
better but only by a bit 15m 39 41.05%
 
A big success for sony 30m 16 16.84%
 
neck and neck with the 3DS 45m 7 7.37%
 
Total:95
NintendoPie on 27 October 2014
teigaga said:
NintendoPie said:
You think the only probably with the Vita was it's utter lack of games? If so, I'm sorry to inform you that that's far removed from the truth.


Quantity of games is not the problem. Appeal, Quality and exclusivity of the games is.

Okay, let me put it this way; you think the only problem with the Vita was anything and everything to do with SW?



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teigaga on 27 October 2014
Sentient_Nebula said:

I'm probably the biggest Vita proponent that I know. But even this is way too far-fetched. There's no way it would've ever gotten this much support from developers. And it would never sell 70M. Not even. Even half of that (35M) would've been considered a huge success.

That said, I don't think it needed that amount of support from devs out of the gate. I feel that its launch lineup of games was at least sufficient (Can't expect a full library of must-owns at launch! Let's be real) Uncharted GA, a launch game, is still one of the best games on the console now. It was let down by other things, namely its price, lack of coherent marketing, and being unable to use the same things that made the PSP successful.

Read through the list again. Most titles are internally developed. Sony actually spent this money during the the same respective periods but they spent it on titles which went on to flop.

Final Fantasy Type 0 and COD are the only unsure quantities from 3rd parties. 

Morrowind and Dark Cloud Remasters are the only games with unlisted developers.



the_dengle on 27 October 2014
bigtakilla said:

I just wonder how they would have paid for all that.

Selling a couple more buildings. In a real Gift-of-the-Magi twist, they would sell the Vita manufacturing plants, leaving the Vita with loads of great software but no consoles on which to play it!



teigaga on 27 October 2014
NintendoPie said:
teigaga said:
NintendoPie said:
You think the only probably with the Vita was it's utter lack of games? If so, I'm sorry to inform you that that's far removed from the truth.


Quantity of games is not the problem. Appeal, Quality and exclusivity of the games is.

Okay, let me put it this way; you think the only problem with the Vita was anything and everything to do with SW?

Nope. Definitely think memory cards/pricing was a problem but games were the number 1 issue in the long run.



bigtakilla on 27 October 2014
the_dengle said:

30 million is a real stretch. Look at where those sales are coming from, and compare the Vita to its closest competitor.

The 3DS launched almost a full year (about 10 months) before the Vita. It has sold 14 million in NA and 12.5 million in Europe. Optimistically, maybe we could have hoped for the Vita to have reached 10 million in each of those territories by now, but without giving it a GTA (the best-selling game on PSP in both NA & Europe), I'm not too confident your revised lineup would have done the trick.

You did nothing for Japan aside from Gran Turismo. Maybe it would be up to 5 million instead of the 3.25 million it's at now. That pushes it up to 25 million, leaving the ROW to pick up the slack.

You also didn't address any of the non-software-related barriers to the Vita's success, like its $250/$300 launch price, and  its unreasonably expensive memory cards and lack of internal memory.

You can only change so much about a machine before it becomes something completely different, and that's the real solution here -- the Vita's first 2 years could have looked much better if it wasn't the Vita at all.

Yeah, when a handheld cost pretty much the same as a home console it really lures people away. I was going to get a Vita when I first heard about it, it seemed like a decent handheld that got a lot of things for mobile gaming right. But then I heard it was $300+ launch for the 4G version, and another $50 for a memory card before taxes. It was the same price as my 32 gig Wii U! I said no thanks. I'll probably pick one up refurbished in another year or two for $150 for Tales of Hearts. 



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MoHasanie on 27 October 2014

They would have lost so much money doing that.



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

NintendoPie on 27 October 2014
teigaga said:

Nope. Definitely think memory cards/pricing was a problem but games were the number 1 issue in the long run.

So you must see that the Vita itself was a failure the moment Sony conceptualized it. Sony couldn't keep costs down but they wanted to introduce an HD console for the sake of it being HD and the sales prove that that doesn't work. 



MrChaos on 27 October 2014
spemanig said:
That kind of line up is the Vita's issue. No one buys a handheld to buy games that are better on consoles. They buy them for games that are better portable. That doesn't mean that there's no place for console experiences on handhelds, but they need those handheld experiences first.


Exactly I bought it for games like Gravity Rush and Soul Sacrifice eventhough I own Uncharted and LBP.I want original games for the device,not ports or smaller scale console games.That is what made the PSP good.Games like Daxter and Secret Agent Clank were good for spinoffs and Sony should have franchised those as they both sold millions.



teigaga on 27 October 2014
the_dengle said:

30 million is a real stretch. Look at where those sales are coming from, and compare the Vita to its closest competitor.

The 3DS launched almost a full year (about 10 months) before the Vita. It has sold 14 million in NA and 12.5 million in Europe. Optimistically, maybe we could have hoped for the Vita to have reached 10 million in each of those territories by now, but without giving it a GTA (the best-selling game on PSP in both NA & Europe), I'm not too confident your revised lineup would have done the trick.

You did nothing for Japan aside from Gran Turismo. Maybe it would be up to 5 million instead of the 3.25 million it's at now. That pushes it up to 25 million, leaving the ROW to pick up the slack.

You also didn't address any of the non-software-related barriers to the Vita's success, like its $250/$300 launch price, and its unreasonably expensive memory cards and lack of internal memory.

You can only change so much about a machine before it becomes something completely different, and that's the real solution here -- the Vita's first 2 years could have looked much better if it wasn't the Vita at all.

Yeah, was going to address though issues, not sure why I deleted it... I think the question I really wanted to ask is would have bought this system versus the one with the line up we actually saw, but I presumed most people who turned up with have already purchased a vita and thus made the poll irrelevant lol.

You're right 30m is definitely a stretch, particularly because this doesn't really fix the situ in Japan except GT and Dark Cloud 3( the other games still would have boosted it baseline their if PS4 sales are anything to go by. In terms of software In the west I think a strongly made elderscrolls game would do better then another portable GTA in this day and age. GTA on Vita would be big but I think elderscrolls would be bigger. It invites 100hrs of gameplay, it would have novelty where GTA wouldn't (No massive western RPGS on any handheld) and appeals to a very core audience who are more likely to pick up a dedicated handheld versus GTA's mass market audience.



teigaga on 27 October 2014
the_dengle said:

30 million is a real stretch. Look at where those sales are coming from, and compare the Vita to its closest competitor.

The 3DS launched almost a full year (about 10 months) before the Vita. It has sold 14 million in NA and 12.5 million in Europe. Optimistically, maybe we could have hoped for the Vita to have reached 10 million in each of those territories by now, but without giving it a GTA (the best-selling game on PSP in both NA & Europe), I'm not too confident your revised lineup would have done the trick.

You did nothing for Japan aside from Gran Turismo. Maybe it would be up to 5 million instead of the 3.25 million it's at now. That pushes it up to 25 million, leaving the ROW to pick up the slack.

You also didn't address any of the non-software-related barriers to the Vita's success, like its $250/$300 launch price, and its unreasonably expensive memory cards and lack of internal memory.

You can only change so much about a machine before it becomes something completely different, and that's the real solution here -- the Vita's first 2 years could have looked much better if it wasn't the Vita at all.

Yeah, was going to address though issues, not sure why I deleted it... I think the question I really wanted to ask is would have bought this system versus the one with the line up we actually saw, but I presumed most people who turned up with have already purchased a vita and thus made the poll irrelevant lol.

You're right 30m is definitely a stretch, particularly because this doesn't really fix the situ in Japan except GT and Dark Cloud 3( the other games still would have boosted it baseline their if PS4 sales are anything to go by. In terms of software In the west I think a strongly made elderscrolls game would do better then another portable GTA in this day and age. GTA on Vita would be big but I think elderscrolls would be bigger. It invites 100hrs of gameplay, it would have novelty where GTA wouldn't (No massive western RPGS on any handheld) and appeals to a very core audience who are more likely to pick up a dedicated handheld versus GTA's mass market audience.