I feel like the Japanese launch soured the initial period for Vita so badly that most people thought it would bomb hard in the West, but I don't see it so far. I definitely expected it to bomb and for Sony to cut the price by the end of June (creating a whole new range of, err, ambassadors in the process) but from the my impressions and the ground level hype about FIFA on Vita, I think it has more momentum than expected.
Reading the impressions here, and pretty much everywhere (overwhelmingly positive, way better than I expected), make me wonder just what went wrong in Japan and how/if Sony can remedy the situation there.
IMO what went wrong in Japan are:
- Lack of JP centric games. I (as well as Yoshida) feel like the launch line up didn't have many games that really catered to the JP audience
- Loss of big 3rd party exclusives (going exclusive to the competition on top of that)
- Perceived high price for the system
- No system sellers out or announced (the biggest game coming out is a 10 year old port that will also be on PS3)
- Looking at the upcoming line up, it looks very bare. The upcoming line ups only show 2 noteworthy games (for the JP market), Pro Yakyuu Spirits 2012 (03/29) and Persona 4: Golden (06/14)
The (feasible) ways to try to remedy that are:
- Get PSP and PS1 games compatible ASAP
- Get PS2, PS2 HD, and PSN games compatible. More Hustle Kings and Top Darts type of deal (buy once get on both), less PvZ type of deal
- Do bundles with the few JP centric games they have there like HSG
- If they can get some 3rd party JP centric games, get them now and announce them now. Right now there's nothing announced and I can't remember when a game was last announced.
- Get SCEJ to actually develop some big games for the JP gamers. It's really embarrassing that a publisher as big as Sony only developed games like LocoRocco and Patapon (good games, but hard to argue that they aren't niche).
- Have PD develop GT5 Mobile coming out this year with cross play (carry your game over, continue your career, etc) as well as vita exclusive features (near trading cars?)
- I don't think it's feasible to expect a price drop anytime soon. The mega bomba PSP Go didn't get one until a year after launch. Sony will stick it out
- Likewise, I don't think it's feasible to expect Sony to buy out a big publisher or pay for exclusivity on a big name 3rd party game like MH or DQ.
Will be interesting to see what Sony will try to do there....
There's also the question on if Sony can keep this momentum going in the west and, if the sales are good in the first month, can they keep it going for subsequent months? But that's a whole other subject.