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Forums - Sales - Why did Sony choose to target the casual market instead of the core gamer with the PlayStation Vita?

HollyGamer on 09 February 2015
small44 said:
Ka-pi96 said:
Teeqoz said:
Actually, the PSP found it's decent success thanks to casuals that didn't even use it to play games. Instead they used it a a phone, an MP3 player, and such. That's the biggest reason that the PSP sold as much as it did, it was so easy to hack.

The PSV was basically doomede out of the g€ate, and it would've been a waste of Sony's 1st party resources to develop games to get moderate to low succes for the Vita platform, instead of developing for the smash hit that is/was the PS4.

Which is actually what I think they should have done with the Vita. They should have combined it with the Xperia and made a kind of phone/handheld hybrid. With the Sony name behind it and if it doesn't affect the price much or look really ugly it could have done very well. If you want to get casual gamers you really need to go all in for them.

If they make a vita phone it will become a direct competitor to other smartphone and we all know how Sony smartphone are doing bad.

As a handhled it will still a niche games and as a smartphone it can't compete with other smartphone and their Playstation mobile store is a huge failure games that already on appstore and android store with a highter price and a very limited number of application that are severely overpriced

Actually if they keep the price down they would able to stand, if they can make Vita with actual capability of phonecall then  it will be another difference story. Most of people neglecting Vita of the lack off usability especially phonecall and other aplication to work and study. And offcourse they also need to fix there mobile store ass well, and keep supporting with good first party games. So my guess if they can make Vita have a phone call capability with other usability plus fixing the mobile store, same price and first party support like 3DS then it will be alright.



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rolltide101x on 09 February 2015
MoHasanie said:
They were trying to make the Vita appealling to all those smartphone gamers but they failed.

How exactly do you figure that? That is what they SHOULD have done. PSVita has gotten very few casual games which it needed



teigaga on 09 February 2015
Teeqoz said:
Actually, the PSP found it's decent success thanks to casuals that didn't even use it to play games. Instead they used it a a phone, an MP3 player, and such. That's the biggest reason that the PSP sold as much as it did, it was so easy to hack.

The PSV was basically doomede out of the g€ate, and it would've been a waste of Sony's 1st party resources to develop games to get moderate to low succes for the Vita platform, instead of developing for the smash hit that is/was the PS4.

It was the PS3 that caused Vita software problems, not the PS4. And making the Vita a mild success would have been more financially rewarding then selling an extra 1m copies of God of War Acension, Grand Turismo 6, Ratchet and Clank Nexus. There are countless PS3 games that arrived between 2011-2013 that should have instead been developed for the Vita. Business wise sony made the mistake of pushing the PS3 harder in 2012 then they pushed the PSVita. When you're a hugely successful system at the end of your life and being flooeded by every big 3rd party release announced, you don't need a ton of exclusives and non of them made much of a dent on the PS3's baseline or natural decline.



cutzman25 on 09 February 2015

vita is dope but the reason why i have never gotten one is because of the high price of the memory cards. It makes no sense



PSN & XBOX GT : cutzman25

small44 on 09 February 2015
HollyGamer said:
small44 said:
Ka-pi96 said:
Teeqoz said:
Actually, the PSP found it's decent success thanks to casuals that didn't even use it to play games. Instead they used it a a phone, an MP3 player, and such. That's the biggest reason that the PSP sold as much as it did, it was so easy to hack.

The PSV was basically doomede out of the g€ate, and it would've been a waste of Sony's 1st party resources to develop games to get moderate to low succes for the Vita platform, instead of developing for the smash hit that is/was the PS4.

Which is actually what I think they should have done with the Vita. They should have combined it with the Xperia and made a kind of phone/handheld hybrid. With the Sony name behind it and if it doesn't affect the price much or look really ugly it could have done very well. If you want to get casual gamers you really need to go all in for them.

If they make a vita phone it will become a direct competitor to other smartphone and we all know how Sony smartphone are doing bad.

As a handhled it will still a niche games and as a smartphone it can't compete with other smartphone and their Playstation mobile store is a huge failure games that already on appstore and android store with a highter price and a very limited number of application that are severely overpriced

Actually if they keep the price down they would able to stand, if they can make Vita with actual capability of phonecall then  it will be another difference story. Most of people neglecting Vita of the lack off usability especially phonecall and other aplication to work and study. And offcourse they also need to fix there mobile store ass well, and keep supporting with good first party games. So my guess if they can make Vita have a phone call capability with other usability plus fixing the mobile store, same price and first party support like 3DS then it will be alright.

You think Sony can compete with Apple,Samsung and chinese phones



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

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MoHasanie on 09 February 2015
Kerotan said:
MoHasanie said:
They were trying to make the Vita appealling to all those smartphone gamers but they failed.

Why didn't they get all those smartphone gamers on it?

No casual gamer wants to buy such an exepensive device just for gaming. A smartphone can play games and do so much more than a Vita. 



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

Mr Khan on 09 February 2015
Train wreck said:
The second sentence gave it away, Rol labeling the PSP a decent success.

It was, though. Didn't it outsell the GBA at the end of the day?



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Mr Khan on 09 February 2015
RolStoppable said:
Kerotan said:

Why didn't they get all those smartphone gamers on it?

They decided to charge money for their products.

Such an archaic business model.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

HollyGamer on 09 February 2015
small44 said:
HollyGamer said:
small44 said:

Sony tried to target everybody ,the launch line up had a mix of casuals and hardcore games and they tried to target smartphone gamers with Playstation mobile.

But their audience was always hardcore gamers they fail to attract them because 3rd party didn't support it well with exclusive hardcore games the only real vita supporter was Ubisoft with Assasin creed Liberation,other 3rd party only released port or reamke of old games which rarely sold system.
When Sony released that Vita is dead they decided to focus on home consoles for their first party studios

 

HollyGamer said:
Dgc1808 said:
PSP sold as an affordable portable media player and console on the go in the beginning. Later a piracy station. :S

before it become a piracy station PSP indeed sold prety well third party games very well, and ofcourse latter on like many other portable device it become a land for piracy the same goes with DS as well.

PSP was released without security it was hacked in 1 month i think why it didn't affect the sale of games in the beginning.

I think 3rd party games started to sold poorly after they ababdonned PSP first PSP had a great support from 3rd party games and they sold well games like God of war chain of olympus and Tekken resurection sold pretty well then they abandonned Psp i don't know for what reason and when they tried to support it again their games sold bad for exemple tekken 6 sold poorly.

But the funny thing is many third party still support PSP even until now. That's why i am able to get conclusion the piracy is not the problem here that affecting the system sales for PSP or even Vita. The problem is the consumer, if you look how many third party games is planed for Vita you will be shocked where all the PSP gamer gone to? the answer is they when to smart device market.

I think in Japan PSP support was always good unlike in West.

When you see that Vita dosn't have exclusive Final fantasy,Monster hunter,Metal gear solid,Gta,Kingdoms heart and never had a lot multiplatform games you understand why PSP gamers didn't buy a Vita.

Because third party choose where their game goes especially the big one like SE, Capcom and other western Dev. and with their earlier sales on Vita, money hated is the only way to cover their weakness on sales. It's different from 3DS where they had a good launch and follow up with a lot off support from first party, and then Nintendo financial ability. While at SONY head quarter they focusing more on PS4 and just let the Vita dictated by market.



rolltide101x on 09 February 2015
MoHasanie said:

No casual gamer wants to buy such an exepensive device just for gaming. A smartphone can play games and do so much more than a Vita. 


I always thought it would have been smart of Sony to base the PSVita off of Android and do something similar to what Amazon does with its Kindle line. Add apps and put pure touchscreen games as well as create games strictly for it.