I have to agree with this. The reason I was skeptical that Nintendo was going to go handheld-only is because it looks like a shrinking market no matter how you massage the numbers. That's a losing proposition so you'd think that Nintendo would bet the farm on it.No, handheld market is owned by phones. Just put out a new phone more focused on gaming if they feel like doing that, like Xperia.
I actually feel Nintendo is kinda screwed going all out handheld now. If it fails to find a bid enough success they won't have the home console to fall back on. They have to fight phones whether people believe it or not.
Depending on what you like, the Vita has excellent third party support. However, you can forget about the Western AAA companies ever making major efforts on handhelds like they used to.I would buy it only if it has a decent Third Party support. Like the PSP in its first years.
Nintendo was historically terrible at 3rd party relations and their policies for lower volume runs of games on the DS were non-existent. Risk for many of those companies is too great for their niche products so they shifted to the PSP that was doing much better for them and the audience migrated.So what came first, the Nintendo audience didn't support otaku publishers or otaku publishers didn't support the Nintendo audience?
Also, how are NIS, Falcom, Idea Factory, etc doing on PS4 so far?
They can't afford it
It is amazing how the Sony went from the PSP, which quietly sold 80+ million units to the Vita which was dead within two years as far as AAA devs were concerned.
They can't afford it
PSP software sales were actually relatively high. In 2011 Sony had announced 70m PSPs sold and 298m software sales to that point.PSP sold 80mln also because it was (easily) hackerable
The Nintendo audience doesn't match up with the audiences for those companies (see how poorly NIS's and Falcom's DS games performed) which is why they don't support Nintendo's systems.
NIS is doing about as well on the PS4 as they are on the Vita and PS3. Falcom is making the move too. Tokyo Xanadu and Ys VIII are getting upgraded ports. Can't imagine that the small fanbases wouldn't also be on the PS4 since, you know, there's a large overlap between Sony's Vita owners and their console owners.
And aside for co-op hunting games, multiplat games are split pretty well like the Attack on Titan game (62K for Vita, 61K for PS4). It's very reasonable to think that, if there was no Vita version, the PS4 sales would increase. Might not necessarily be double namely if there are price differences between the versions but I see no reason why the fanbase would be more likely to move to the NX than to the PS4 especially when the games aren't based around co-op.
The big problem that killed the Vita more than anything else was that Sony's resources were stretched thin trying to support both systems. WiiU suffered from the same issue in Nintendo. The main difference between the systems in that regard that made the big difference was internal politics. Sony's Japan branch really wanted a PSP successor so they pushed for the NGP, but they never consulted their branches abroad. Europe and US were not too hot on that idea with the US being the most negative.Yes they should and they should also support it better. If the Vita was a crappy piece of hardware and a horrible experience I'd say No (like many others are) however the Vita is actually a great piece of hardware and it is a pleasure to use and despite Sony putting no effort in the platform at all it still gets plenty of playtime from me. It's pretty remarkable that the hardware, os and such limited software support has managed to carry the system and keep it a relevant part of my gaming life years into it's life.
Precisely. It won't have Monster Hunter so it's not worth even creating.
PSP software sales were actually relatively high. In 2011 Sony had announced 70m PSPs sold and 298m software sales to that point.
It didn't set the world ablaze but I wouldn't say software sales were a failure. DS suffered from an even more rampant piracy problem but of course sold more than twice the amount of units.
All the ps4 games on the go (no internet connection is needed).
Um how would that be possible? It's basically a given than the NX games won't be graphical powerhouses, since they have to be played on portable hardware.
How could they get a PS4 game to run on a portable?
I think Sony killed their own chances there
Probably not now, but in the near future i'm sure it will be possible.
Probably not now, but in the near future i'm sure it will be possible.
Yes this makes sense in regards to DS vs PSP. Media was a major factor as was system spec; lots of companies had recent PS2 and PC games that could be easily ported to PSP but not really translated to DS. That's why PSP got Monster Hunter and DS didn't for example.Nintendo was historically terrible at 3rd party relations and their policies for lower volume runs of games on the DS were non-existent. Risk for many of those companies is too great for their niche products so they shifted to the PSP that was doing much better for them and the audience migrated.
DS sold 2x the units but it also sold 3x the software PSP did.PSP software sales were actually relatively high. In 2011 Sony had announced 70m PSPs sold and 298m software sales to that point.
It didn't set the world ablaze but I wouldn't say software sales were a failure. DS suffered from an even more rampant piracy problem but of course sold more than twice the amount of units.
The be fair GBA's only Japanese million sellers were Pokemon and a SMB1 rom. PSP's software sales in Japan at least weren't a world away from what GBA was doing, not much could crack a million on either.I didn't mean that PSP sw sales were low but piracy helped hw sales in the same way it helped monstrous DS sales (and Wii too)
but considering that in Japan it sold around the GBA but except for MH titles anything else passed the milion mark
which are the milion sellers besides GTA for the west and MH for Japan?
While some of the perceived advantages of PSP vs DS disappeared with the 3DS, the publisher relations don't suddenly change overnight. These niche games found a good audience on the Vita and these publishers were expecting their audience to move to it rather than 3DS. If you are a mainstream game series like Monster Hunter your decisions are different.Yes this makes sense in regards to DS vs PSP. Media was a major factor as was system spec; lots of companies had recent PS2 and PC games that could be easily ported to PSP but not really translated to DS. That's why PSP got Monster Hunter and DS didn't for example.
For 3DS vs Vita though a lot of these inherent advantages lessened or dissappeared entirely. Media is similar and so are the logistics surrounding it (costs, capacities, volumes, lead times) and while there's still a gulf in spec, it's lessened versus the DS/PSP gulf in terms of what games can be done on both systems. And as such 3DS got Monster Hunter to great success. Similarly the gulf in spec for Vita and recent consoles/PC widened versus PSP and the consoles/PC games of it's day, making direct ports and conversions a less attractive proposition outside focused Japanese cross development or low spec indies. Vita's incredible market collapse didn't help matters either.
With DS there were more compelling reasons for niche Japanese publishers to avoid the platform than we saw with 3DS. And likewise PSP was a much more attractive and competitive platform in it's day than what Vita offers, yet we still see some niche publishers fighting market realities to fully back Vita and never really bother giving 3DS a shot. Even now with Vita's end in sight we see these same publishers attempting to transition to PS4 on some slim hope of a Square driven Japanese turnaround, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the same usual suspects completely ignore NX again. Saying there isn't a market on Nintendo platforms for their games when no serious attempt is ever made to try build one (even when the general marketplace and platform characteristics favor trying) just seems like circular logic to me.
DS sold 2x the units but it also sold 3x the software PSP did.
The be fair GBA's only Japanese million sellers were Pokemon and a SMB1 rom. PSP's software sales in Japan at least weren't a world away from what GBA was doing, not much could crack a million on either.
GBA was also hit pretty hard by piracy in it's day but in different ways than DS and PSP. It was more about emulating the platform entirely rather than using custom firmware or pirate cards on real hardware.
I think Sony killed their own chances there
Power had nothing to do with it because they could have built the games ground up for the DS/3DS and then ported them to the PSP/Vita.
Falcom's president explicitly stated that it's because the sales of their DS games were poor that they didn't develop more games for it.
They on released two games:
Legacy of Ys: Books I & II which was panned for changing up the original story too much.
Ys Strategy which wasn't even released in the United States and received very bad reviews.