Unfortunately I don't think Sony will do that. I believe they're losing money on every Vita as is.
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Media Create Sales: Week 51, 2011 (Dec 19 - Dec 25)
- Thread starter Road
- Start date
Unfortunately I don't think Sony will do that. I believe they're losing money on every Vita as is.
thehypocrite
Member
It will be interesting seeing what's Sony strategy for the device in japan. are they riding out the first year with the PSP as the biggest money maker? or they will enter in desperation mode like nintendo?
I don't think they have to do just as nintendo, Nintendo is betting heavily on the 3DS, cause that's going to be their money maker until they establish the WIIU. Having the 3DS slumping or failing, was a rather compromising scenario, not the same for situation for Sony.
I think they need to pick their poison, if they don't drop the price, they will need to invest heavily on games for the hardcore gamers, and just droping the price without having that game that will appeal to the mainstream audience won't help them in a substantial way.
Sales age is getting interesting.
I don't think they have to do just as nintendo, Nintendo is betting heavily on the 3DS, cause that's going to be their money maker until they establish the WIIU. Having the 3DS slumping or failing, was a rather compromising scenario, not the same for situation for Sony.
I think they need to pick their poison, if they don't drop the price, they will need to invest heavily on games for the hardcore gamers, and just droping the price without having that game that will appeal to the mainstream audience won't help them in a substantial way.
Sales age is getting interesting.
bgassassin
Member
Well to be fair you did say you wanted Vita to 'beat' 3DS. I don't really see the difference.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Worst attempt at spin I've seen on here in ages.
How is you fan boner doing?
Yeah that means after the initial early buyers, this is the real interest people have in Vita in Japan, and that's the Christmas period. What does that mean for next weeks ? 20-30 a week ?
We could see some weeks with better psp numbers, and again, that's terribad at best. That simply means the Vita isn't seen as the new psp for people, it completely misses the new psp demographic.
If Sony hold on, we could see some month (years..) of coma for the console before a new life after some price drop and a real game that could create some commnunity, but that won't be before 1 or 2 years i guess...
I don't see how things can get much better for Vita anytime soon. I think the 3DS Lite next year will do what Lite did for DS Phat. I really believe in the longevity of the platform potential of the 3DS since the beginning; all the while I've been saying that Vita will be a catastrophic failure since the moment I realized how massive and over engineered it was.
And although it's too early to call it, I think I was wrong about the Vita but not by much.
Source
And although it's too early to call it, I think I was wrong about the Vita but not by much.
Source
Hydrargyrus
Member
OMFG at PSV.
Awful numbers in his second week.
Btw, fantastic numbers for 3DS and very good numbers for Wii and PS3
Awful numbers in his second week.
Btw, fantastic numbers for 3DS and very good numbers for Wii and PS3
Dr. Feel Good
Banned
The Final Fantasy talk last week really made me think we were going to see <100k for XIII-2, but it ended up maintaining itself a bit better than expected. Holiday boost + huge discount meant higher numbers maybe? Still not a great showing by any means but could push 50k to 85k higher than what most people thought it's LTD would be.
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
yes, a machine at the time being propped up by one game (which is now on the 3ds)
Unfortunately for the Vita, the 3DS hasn't brought just MH to the fight, it brought a 3D Mario that seemingly found that "appeal to the masses" spark, and a nailed tight Mario Kart.
Though as others have pointed out, PSP dropped a load on the PSV as well. Then again - you want massive bargain software? PSP has shelves of them. It might even be PSV owning UMD fans buying a B/C unit
Warriors Orochi 2 started much better than Warriors Orochi Z (did 112k first week). It's a bit lower than Warriors Orochi 2 on the PS2 (those titles are confusing >.>) and about 100k lower than Warriors Orochi 1.
SD Gundam is okay, not too bad but I think the PSP games did much better.
They're probably making up the difference with the over priced memory cards, which are as close to mandatory as you can get.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
There's quite a difference from wanting something to fail and wanting something to sell better than its counterpart
That's the thing, it takes more than a price drop. The GameCube is a good example of what happens when you do a price drop without backing it up with AAA software. Of course, there's also the issue the Vita may be priced as low as it can get. SCE may not be able to move around for a bit.
The Vita needs some big games announced. Really big games. I'm not certain if Sony has the resources or pull to have that done though. An alternative path is to cater to smaller developers/publishers to get more software on board. Companies like Atlus/NIS/Falcom/Gust. Entice them with lower royality fees or what have you.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
I actually think Vita will have a better launch here in the US. Uncharted is a more popular title here and I think it will move some systems.
That said, I am yet again rethinking my preorder. If sales are this abysmal this thing it going to have a price drop VERY soon.
That said, I am yet again rethinking my preorder. If sales are this abysmal this thing it going to have a price drop VERY soon.
thestopsign
Member
5. NDS SD Gundam G Generation DS - Bandai - 13,000 (66,000)
2nd week of what seems to be a similar game for the NDS back in May 2005. It ended up just over 100k.
Actually just searched Garaph for this:
http://garaph.info/softwareindividual.php//gid/281
Looks like it ended up at 94k.
The_Darkest_Red
Member
The Vita needs big games to sell. I really think it's that simple (just look at 3DS).
You're probably right but that isn't going to stop me!
First week / LTD:
[PS2] Warriors Orochi (Koei) {2007.03.21} - 406,247 / 609,829
[360] Warriors Orochi (Koei) {2007.09.13} - 5,000 / 5,000
[PS2] Warriors Orochi Maou Sairin (Koei) {2008.04.03} - 227,535 / 416,978
[360] Warriors Orochi Maou Sairin (Koei) {2008.09.04} - ???
[PS3] Warriors Orochi Z (Koei) {2009.03.12} - 112,283 / 262,140
[PS3] Warriors Orochi 2 (Koei Tecmo) {2011-12-22} - 200,526 / NEW
[360] Warriors Orochi 2 (Koei Tecmo) {2011-12-22} - ???
jeremy1456
Junior Member
Because of Japanese sales charts?
I actually get what you're saying, but it seems a little absurd.
Do you think people will still buy it at $50?
The biggest problem, as alreayd mentioned, is that Nintendo actually had room for a price cut. For two reasons: 1) they have enormous financial reserves and zero debt, and 2) they priced the system well above production cost to begin with, so a price cut simply took a money earner in to a modest money loser. By contrast, Sony has 1) much lower financial reserves and over 8 Billion in secured debt, and 2) launched the Vita at a loss to begin with, so a significant price cut would take a money loser and turn it in to a massive money loser.
Sony left themselves very little wiggle room.
A price drop would be a disaster at this point. They can't afford to bleed more money.
Luckily for them, their Vita gpu and cpu are cell phone parts, variants of which are used in a ton of smart phones and tablets including iPads and iPhones. Even if they are currently losing money, those parts are going to drop in price really quickly. Generation turnaround for phones is 1 year. The screens will drop in price quickly as well. I don't see anything else particularly expensive about the Vita. No expensive internal memory or new technologies.
Maybe a price drop right now would be impossible, but they will probably be in a position to drop the price in 6 months.
jeremy1456
Junior Member
It still sold over 200k its second week on the market...
And the 3DS already had several entries in HUGE franchises (Mario, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing) announced for it.
Plus, the Vita had the benefit of launching in the busiest shopping period. 3DS did not.
The_Darkest_Red
Member
Do you think that's a bigger problem than the software lineup, though? If this thing had a new Monster Hunter announced for it I can't imagine it selling too poorly.
There's another DS SD Gundam that did around 260k LTD.
All I know is I don't want to buy another $250 system and have it heavily discounted months later. Looks like with Vita, we have another high probability of something like that happening.
thestopsign
Member
The difference is that the 3DS had no direct competition to worry about beating in head to head sales while this was happening. It was gradually accumulating a lead all the same. Now the PSV is digging itself further into the ground with every passing week.
I don't think Sony can take that kind of hit.
That and a price drop isn't everything.
3ds needed a price drop and (especially ?) 3 Fucking historical selllers released...
I mean i don't even see what could go near 1 million in the eventual 2012 calendar of the Vita...
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
Unless of course it's priced under $250 by the time it hits launch.
Would be interesting to know what the SKU break down is and what Sony have or haven't put into the channel since launch. I think it would paint a clearer picture of these numbers, since 3G/WiFi version clearly isn't the consumers preference.
If they are still feeding into their initial shipments, in which 3G is still in abundance, it's not that bad and not terribly great either, if they have reup'd on the WiFi units and they are readily available through the week, then these numbers are pretty disappointing.
If they are still feeding into their initial shipments, in which 3G is still in abundance, it's not that bad and not terribly great either, if they have reup'd on the WiFi units and they are readily available through the week, then these numbers are pretty disappointing.
jeremy1456
Junior Member
I'm pretty sure Sony can't afford it. They don't have the breathing room Nintendo did because they went so far out with tech.
It'll probably be $250 for over a year.
thestopsign
Member
Yup, you're right.
http://garaph.info/softwareindividual.php//gid/280
Doesn't appear to be great legs on this series, so expect quite a large drop off next week.
Maybe not a manufacturer discount, but if it's really bombing, at least some retailer deals, heavily discounted games, etc. Or buying one used.
It took four week for the 3DS to reach the same level of sales. It did 370k, 209k, 96k, then around 60k, in its first four weeks.
The Vita is tracking much worse during an usually better sales week. Of course the 3DS didn't have the same kind of competition, the Vita is up agaisnt a cheap platform with 3 monster selling software, plus a few more that sell nicely (IE, Gundam). But still, it's doing quite badly :/
They probably didn't have a choice.
I think it could do a better second week than most could expect because 3DS will still be really high. And I'll say it: 200k of LTD are not so unbelievable, considering that the Crossdive actually obtained to more than double it's first week. But I'd say 170-180k are what it'll probably do.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
Why didn't Sony just give Capcom like 50 million or whatever it takes to get MH4 exclusive? What's worse: losing 50 mil for the exclusive or having your entire platform tank in a region
Dr. Feel Good
Banned
Debt doesn't necessarily mean they are financially in trouble though. A lot of companies, especially in certain industries rely on debt to leverage their business and money flow. Because of the size of Sony and the number of products they sell you can't really assume that they don't have the ability to make changes. They could be great payers to lenders for all we know, they just choose to have a portion of their business be dependent on borrowed money.
Now that doesn't mean I think that Sony will slash prices on the Vita (the STILL high price of the PS3 this far down the road shows that) but I don't think we should blankly look at a companies debt to equity ratio and assume the worst, at least not with a company as big as Sony anyways.
RevenantKioku
PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
What does this even mean?
Oh absolutely, that would be ideal. There are two problems with that solution though, and they are big ones: 1) Games of that nature take a long time to develop, and can't reasonably be expected to fix this sort of sales problem in the near or even medium term, as we'd be looking at a year or more lag time; 2) Games of this nature aren't made by Sony themselves, so in large part their existance is out of Sony's hands.
Like Nintendo before them, what Sony has control over -- and can do rapidly -- is the price of the system.
Next week we'll see a big drop for every single game in the top 20 thought. First week of january will be more telling.