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KOTAKU: Mobile Gaming Didn't Kill The Vita--Sony Did

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bud23

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By Jason Schreier;

I have long been a fan of the PlayStation Vita. So this quote from one of Sony’s head honchos about portable gaming seriously bums me out.

Here’s Shuhei Yoshida at a recent Q&A, as transcribed by Eurogamer, when asked if Sony will ever develop a Vita successor:

“...So I hope, like many of you, that this culture of playing portable games continues but the climate is not healthy for now because of the huge dominance of mobile gaming.”
Click to expand...

This is nonsense. The climate is fine. Nintendo has sold over 50 million 3DSes and they don’t even have Minecraft. There’s no doubt that mobile gaming has had a huge impact on the traditional video game industry, but when it comes to the Vita flopping, Sony has nobody but themselves to blame.

Here is a partial list of reasons the Vita has failed:

-Sony decided to gouge customers by forcing them to use proprietary memory cards, then jacking up the prices to obscene levels. (A 32GB Vita memory card retails for $100; standard 32GB SDHC memory cards cost $18.)

-Sony marketed the Vita as a portable system with “console-quality gaming,” then went on to pack it with shoddy spinoffs like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Call of Duty: Declassified, and Resistance: Burning Skies.

-Despite all this, a subset of hardcore gamers quickly realized that the Vita was a fantastic machine for indies and niche Japanese games. So what did Sony do? They decided to pivot it as a portable accessory to the PS4—as if anyone would dish out an extra $250 to play Destiny on the toilet.

-Vita owners also realized that the machine is fantastic for playing old PS1 and PSP games. Sony saw how much money they could make there, and they immediately filled out the PlayStation Store, pleasing fans with truckloads of classic new games every week. Just kidding. They ignored it. Even today you need to use a silly shortcut just to get some old games working on your Vita.

-Remember the PS2? One of the most successful video game consoles in history? Chock full of great games that could be ported to the Vita in various ways? Someone should remind Sony.

-Remember BioShock Vita? lmao

-Sony has pretty much spent the past two years pretending the Vita doesn’t exist, ignoring it at every major trade show and convention. It’s embarrassing.

-Sony has publicly admitted that they are no longer making Vita games.
Click to expand...

Remember when the 3DS launched back in 2011? Remember how hard it flopped? Instead of pulling back and blaming the “climate” for all of their woes, Nintendo doubled down, releasing new models and filling it up with stellar games to the point where it’s now one of the best machines you can buy. Granted, Sony doesn’t have Mario or Zelda or the storied development acumen of their competitors in Kyoto. But if they hadn’t spent the past three and a half years firing a giant rifle at their own feet, maybe things would look a little different for the wonderful PlayStation Vita.

http://kotaku.com/mobile-gaming-didnt-kill-the-vita-sony-did-1733350950

Interesting read for sure.
 
Schreier on point as always.

I completely agree with everything in that artilcle. They made the best handheld ever but then completely failed at everything around it. Marketing, messaging, support with games and the fucking MC prices.

There still was a market for the Vita when it launched.
 
i think the sheer popularity of the 3ds alone shows mobile gaming didnt kill the vita, sony did.

hell, id argue the vita might have been able to distinguish itself better than the 3ds when it came to mobile gaming. more powerful hardware in the vita no? where as the 3ds could of been all mobile gaming clones.

obviously those clones exist, but the 3ds is printing money, and original titles.
 
Handhelds aren't fine, 3DS may have hit 50 million but just look at any PAL/NPD thread, software sales are in the toilet. There just isn't room for a console lite handheld, Vita's target audience is gone. Unlike Nintendo handhelds aren't their bread and butter. So they can only afford to lose money for so long.

People keep bringing up the stupidly expensive memory cards, but seem to have forgotten just how expensive a 256mb memory stick pro cost near the PSPs launch. All those PS2 games people want ported have licenses and agreements in place. It isn't as simple as just building an emulator. Its why the PSP store still doesn't have every single title.
 
The 3DS sold "fine", if by "fine" you mean 1/3 of what the DS has sold and a successor system being released next year.

Mobile gaming hit the Vita a lot harder because of the demographics (adults with nice, big screen smartphones) vs. the 3DS (kids with recycled/hand-me-down phones).
 
Mobile gaming sure didn't help, but yeah. Sony probably could've done more
Hamster Plugin said:
Those fucking memory cards killed it.

There was hype for this machine until that happened.
Click to expand...
I don't think memory cards killed a system. It was most likely made to offset the costs of the system at the time as well
 
Lots of great points here, but, I don't think it's fair to entirely place the blame on either factor. It's both that Sony failed to support it *and* that the market sucks.
 
No one bought the good games in a quantity sufficient to justify producing them and Sony doesn't have the kind of first-party IP to drive mainstream adoption like Nintendo.

That's why the Vita isn't feasible. The memory card issue is not anywhere near the level of detrimental that GAF thinks it is.

And I say this having owned every gen of the PSP and 3 Vitas.

It's really not that surprising.
 
They decided to pivot it as a portable accessory to the PS4—as if anyone would dish out an extra $250 to play Destiny on the toilet.
Click to expand...

Never underestimate Destiny players, Jason.
 
Let's be real. If you aren't the 3DS no handheld is going to sell.

MS can put out a handheld with all the marketing behind it and no one will care about it
 
I agree whole heartedly with Jason. Except, I feel lumping Golden Abyss in with those Resistance and CoD games is a little unfair. Golden Abyss was a fantastic.
 
The Jackdog said:
i think the sheer popularity of the 3ds alone shows mobile gaming didnt kill the vita, sony did.

hell, id argue the vita might have been able to distinguish itself better than the 3ds when it came to mobile gaming. more powerful hardware in the vita no? where as the 3ds could of been all mobile gaming clones.

obviously those clones exist, but the 3ds is printing money.
Click to expand...

the 3DS is also going to lose about half of it's predecessor's userbase. What is the reason for that?n Obviously there is a reason people aren't buying handheld dedicated gaming devices the way they used to. If anything I think Sony would be hit harder by a shift to mobile because their audience with PSP probably skewed older, and these people are much more likely to just turn to their mobile phones for entertainment, and because they didn't have the bankable portable franchises and IPs that Nintendo had and were able to fall back on with 3DS.

I think Sony made mistakes with PS Vita, but a lot of them were in the execution of the product itself. It was the wrong product at the wrong time. I'm not sure there was a lot they could have done to make it any less of a failure than it ended up being.
 
That list consists off of very weak points.
And of course the title.
There is just no way, that there were many reasons inside and outside of Sony's power why Vita failed.
 
man, I love my Vita too, and no doubt Sony neglected it - but I completely agree with Shu, I really think the sun has risen and set on dedicated, high end gaming handhelds. This was even true at the launch of the Vita, it's doom was set in motion from day one by the market it was diving into.

not that sony didn't do any utterly shit job with it, mind you.

-Sony marketed the Vita as a portable system with “console-quality gaming,” then went on to pack it with shoddy spinoffs like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Call of Duty: Declassified, and Resistance: Burning Skies.
Click to expand...

? Why the hate for UC GA? It's not a masterpiece, but it's not a "shoddy spin off" and should in no way be lumped in with those other two turds. Sony Bend is a great little studio

Jason, i feel like this would have been better as a more fully fleshed out article, the "list" approach doesn't do the discussion much service
 
Good points except the whole niche Japanese games and indies thing.

Marketing it as the platform for said type of games is a pretty hit or miss position.
 
Nintendo sold 50 million out of inertia. It's the last gasp of a dying market segment.

Sony just felt the heat sooner as they were targeting a more niche audience.

In the end it doesn't matter. The dedicated handheld is a horse and buggy. The kids these days prefer the automobile.
 
black-dynamite-you-done-fucked-up-now.gif


but i agree that yes mobile took a chunk, but sony never tried from the very beginning.
 
Most of his bullet points also applied to the PSP, and that handheld did fine. He's also neglecting the fact that 3DS did take a major install base hit compared to DS and that 3DS is more geared towards kids, who are less likely to own a smartphone than Vita's target audience; teenagers and adults.

You can argue that losing Monster Hunter did kill some of Vita's momentum in Japan, but above that, I'm not sure how much more could've been done before passing the point of efficiency in terms of investment. Bioshock Vita is of little consequence. We didn't even see a trailer of it. Why is it listed as a major reason of Vita "failing"?
 
The End said:
The 3DS sold "fine", if by "fine" you mean 1/3 of what the DS has sold and a successor system being released next year.
Click to expand...
DS is the second best selling game console ever made. One third of that in this mobile dominated market is honestly not bad at all.
 
BioShock Vita was nothing to lmao about. It was a project where developer wanted to make something, but economics of AAA Vita soon made publishers said nope nope nope.
 
Vita means life!

Look I know the system is not doing well sales-wise and support is sparse but I find it hard to care considering how much enjoyment I have gotten out of the machine.

Got an email today that Persona 4 Dancing has shipped from amazon, and I am HYPED AS FUCK.
 
The handheld market has cratered. Nintendo could drop the price of the 3DS because they admitted to over charging in the first place.

Not having Mario and Pokémon is a pretty big deal to try and hand wave away.
 
Missing one big elephant in the room. It's not Minecraft, but still. Monster Hunter, the only significant 3rd party on PSP, went over to 3DS. But I agree with Jason on all points.
 
DraggT tbqh. I own two Vitas and I love them so much but it could have been sooooo much more. I haven't bought any games for them since Freedom Wars because the only things coming out now are
creepy
otaku games or JRPGs with
creepy
otaku content. And indies, which are good to be fair.
 
TheXfactor said:
black-dynamite-you-done-fucked-up-now.gif


but i agree that yes mobile took a chunk, but sony never tried from the very beginning.
Click to expand...

They did try, but once the product was out, and it was a product that was the opposite of where the market was going, and what the market was wanting, it's kind of hard to turn things around. I would say turning Vita into a indie/JRPG/visual novel machine and focusing on that, as well as pushing it as a complement to the PS4, is pretty much the best they could do once it became apparent that there was little to no market for an expensive handheld that replicated console like experiences.
 
While I do agree that Sony bailed out a bit early, this does read a bit fanboyish. Nintendo doubled down on the 3DS because handhelds have been their bread and butter for pushing hardware since the N64 (Outside of the Wii). In a business sense, it makes more sense for Sony to focus on their console space since that is their clear future going forward with VR attempting to be their second gaming pillar.
 
So what would sales of the Vita have been if Sony had not made all those "mistakes" because as far as I can see, not much would have changed. Handhelds have been hurt big time by mobile

Seeing how first party titles were doing in the NPD threads, I would have stopped development for it too, at least from the western SCE studios.

Didn't Tearaway sell 15K in it's first month?

Also the third party support the PSP had wasn't there so what you're left with is less games and a shrinking market.
 
FrankCaron said:
That's why the Vita isn't feasible. The memory card issue is not anywhere near the level of detrimental that GAF thinks it is.
Click to expand...

If that's what you want to think.

"Okay, you want the successor to the PSP?"

"Uh-huh."

"You want to save?"

"Uh-huh."

"Are you buying digital?"

"YEAH, what do you take me for an idiot? LOL UMD LOL"

"...$100 for 32 gigs when an SD card with that much can be much cheaper."

"WTF!?"
 
I believe they kinda dropped it very fast to Support PS4 and Playstation VR. I think there is no Studio or Team that made a second vita Game after their first one. Maybe they thought it would be successful enough to attract third partys

I also Don't See how they would have Support the Vita, PS4 and PSVR at the same time
 
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