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Can the Vita be salvaged in the West?

ReaperXL07 said:
No but in Hirai's own words gaming is one of the companies main three pillars for the Company moving forward, so it would make sense for them to invest more in it than other places. If Sony announces any PSV games for mid, to late 2014 at E3 what then, would they be actively trolling us?

Also why would they be in talks with Inafune for Soul Sacrafice 2 if they were planning to discontinue it? Allot of things Sony is doing right now would not make sense(atleast to me) if they were planning to cut and run on the Vita.
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did they actually say soul sacrifice 2 would be a vita title though? perhaps it'd be on ps3 or 4
 
Father_Brain said:
That didn't apply for PS3, though. Or for Nintendo, when they launched 3DS or Wii U.

We know that actual Vita Q1 FY2012 shipments were only 400K, and that sellthrough didn't improve that much over the course of the year (outside of a very weak holiday bump in the West and the recent price cut bump in Japan), so I'm doubtful that Sony could get to 7M without that 1.8M included. I'm willing to reconsider that if PSP sales were much better than I thought, though.
Click to expand...

PS3 is 6 years old and Sony stopped making PS2. PS3/PS2 should be going down.

It's pretty obvious that they aren't chopping up Vita's FY2011 shipments and adding them to multiple quarters in FY12.

That's insane.
 
More games (just like Wii U)
Price cut
Bundle or cheaperrrrrr memory card

Why are sony still stuck with proprietary card like that, DS's been using SD cards as standard, which makes lot of sense
 
bestpersonevar said:
idk why the Vita isn't more popular. It has some great games on it, P4 Golden, Guacamele, Gravity Rush, Soul Sacrifice, etc.

I play mine quite a bit.
Click to expand...

None of these are games are heavy hitters, Sony is targetting a market that doesn't exist (the "20-30 year old urban male consumer" plays stuff on phones these days), Nintendo has the kids' handheld market locked up, memory card prices, etc.
 
frankie_baby said:
did they actually say soul sacrifice 2 would be a vita title though? perhaps it'd be on ps3 or 4
Click to expand...

No Inafune stated himself that he wanted to help boost the Vitas sales, he also mentioned that he wanted to do "other" games for Sonys consoles.

http://m.joystiq.com/2013/04/26/soul-sacrifice-sequel-already-pitched-to-sony-says-inafune/

"Soul Sacrifice is something I specifically designed for Vita using [the] hardware's specific features," Inafune told IGN. "To drive Vita sales even more, I have an idea for a Soul Sacrifice sequel. I'm actually approaching [Sony Computer Entertainment] regarding this project."
Click to expand...
 
Mr Swine said:
All this could have been avoided If Sony had released Vita a few months before the 3DS. Maybe not as powerful as vita is, more powerful than 3DS and they could have had the price point lower and probably had 1GB of storage built in. I think it would have had a bigger and better chance against the 3DS
Click to expand...

Some things to consider: If they do so, the vita we have now wouldn't be able to handle some of the higher end vita titles we are seeing now. Which means we will be seeing inferior version of these titles or straight out non-existance of those titles. The "console quality" gaming selling point wouldn't be so strong and depending on how big of a downgrade we are talking about, it could also means no crossplay too. Don't forget that sony needs to see the 3DS before they can decide on the vita design as well.

But to say the truth, i wouldn't mind that personally as well. I will gladly trade for a less powerful vita in exchange for more games, internal storage and a nicer pricetag.
 
Y2Kev said:
I don't think the cost of reviving the Vita (yes, the Vita is dead) in the west is worth it to Sony. I'm not convinced SCEA and SCEE even wanted to launch the thing. They probably would have withdrawn from the market given the PSP's performance in these markets for the last few years of its life.

edit: SCEJ, oddly enough, is barely even supporting Vita. One or two major noteworthy releases in 2-3 years? Why is it that SCEA and SCEE, with titles like Uncharted and Killzone, have to support this thing? Those branches surely know their games are better suited to the home console market. Maybe SCEJ should just be sunk.
Click to expand...
The PSP actually sold reasonably well in SCEE territories, and continues to sell. Last quarter it was the fourth best selling system after the PS3, 360 and 3DS.
 
Spiegel said:
PS3 is 6 years old and Sony stopped making PS2. PS3/PS2 should be going down.

It's pretty obvious that they aren't chopping up Vita's FY2011 shipments and adding them to multiple quarters in FY12.

That's insane.
Click to expand...

What I was saying was that when PS3, 3DS, and Wii U launched, shipments for all of those platforms were included in the official results for the year in question. It's bizarre that this wasn't the case for Vita.

Nonetheless, I can see that I did make a leap of logic in going from that to the conclusion that FY11 units were shifted into FY12, and that's probably a conclusion I should have thought through better.
 
Am I following this right?

If they shipped 2.8m psp total in 2012 according to that link, then that's 4.2m Vita's that needed to be sold. If they only shipped 400k in q1 that's 3.8m in 3 quarters. And the link says they only shipped (or estimated to ship) 3.1 for the whole year.
They must had to have increased shipments anyway to meet those sales? Or is that something to do with leftovers and unsold previous stock.
 
Skyzard said:
Am I following this right?

If they shipped 2.8m psp total in 2012 according to that link, then that's 4.2m Vita's that needed to be sold. If they only shipped 400k in q1 that's 3.8m in 3 quarters. And the link says they only shipped (or estimated to ship) 3.1 for the whole year.
They must had to have increased shipments anyway to meet those sales? Or is that something to do with leftovers and unsold previous stock.
Click to expand...

Chart is for calendar 2012, whereas Sony's numbers are for fiscal 2012. If someone could run the numbers and provide PSP/Vita worldwide sellthrough figures for April 2012-March 2013, we'd be able to make a more useful comparison.
 
I really don't recommend myself for that, especially at the moment. Thanks for clarifying, lots of things seemed off hah.
 
I like to think it can with the right support and then I see how Soul Sacrifice is treated in the West (no bundles, little advertising, missing from weekly circulars, and not even mentioned in the initial blog post from Sony for releases this week) and scratch my head thinking what is going on at SCEA.

I mean we can't even get a special edition for one of vita's biggest titles in months, when games like Muramasa, Ragnarok Odyssey, and Ys Celceta are getting special editions? I'd pay $20 extra for an artbook and soundtrack for SS. You guys have Aram on your team now he could have done the unboxing.

Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.
 
I can't believe people are calling for a redesign... Wtf?

I don't understand this... The vita is truly a great piece of kit.

What do people dislike with the OS/hardware?
 
Bowler said:
I can't believe people are calling for a redesign... Wtf?

I don't understand this... The vita is truly a great piece of kit.

What do people dislike with the OS/hardware?
Click to expand...

If you mean people talking about a revision - it ought to mean cheaper parts so Sony can drop the price mostly.
 
Vita launched with the most amazing handheld game I have ever played Uncharted. Things have been very stale as of late. Soul Sacrifice will give you that proud feeling of owning one though as I already finished the Japanese version. Not really a fan of all the indies, I would have thought Sony would have been working on some meatier games for the system outside of the few we know about. Its just alot of missed potential sometimes I look at mines and wish I had more games like Uncharted to play. Had it since launch and im not trading it any anytime soon. As far as the West goes, the Vita wont be doing pretty much anything until they either drop amazing new titles that appeal to the masses where they only exist on Vita or Sony pumps this PS4 Vita remote play stuff full blast.
 
Skyzard said:
If you mean people talking about a revision - it ought to mean cheaper parts so Sony can drop the price mostly.
Click to expand...

While I follow what your saying, but barring a chip redesign to a smaller nm footprint, I'm unsure if there is anything they could do to make it cheaper.
 
Father_Brain said:
Chart is for calendar 2012, whereas Sony's numbers are for fiscal 2012. If someone could run the numbers and provide PSP/Vita worldwide sellthrough figures for April 2012-March 2013, we'd be able to make a more useful comparison.
Click to expand...
Sell through to March in the US was 435K, Japan was 630K, Europe through week 14 was 395K.

Deducting that from the LTD I have would make April 2012 to March 2013 sell-through 2.26M units.
 
Man-is-Obsolete said:
I like to think it can with the right support and then I see how Soul Sacrifice is treated in the West (no bundles, little advertising, missing from weekly circulars, and not even mentioned in the initial blog post from Sony for releases this week) and scratch my head thinking what is going on at SCEA.

I mean we can't even get a special edition for one of vita's biggest titles in months, when games like Muramasa, Ragnarok Odyssey, and Ys Celceta are getting special editions? I'd pay $20 extra for an artbook and soundtrack for SS. You guys have Aram on your team now he could have done the unboxing.

Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.
Click to expand...

What was the last game that SCEA put much marketing effort into at all in the first place, and to top it off a Japanese game? Sadly marketing has not really been SCEAs strength in a long time, unless you count the Kevin Butler stuff but that only lasted a short time overall.

SCEA needs to fix allot of things, maybe even starting by replacing a few key people at the top because the amount of times that SCEA drops the ball on some of the simpilest things is pretty crazy.
 
Bowler said:
While I follow what your saying, but barring a chip redesign to a smaller nm footprint, I'm unsure if there is anything they could do to make it cheaper.
Click to expand...

I see what you're saying, and it's nice the way it is as well, price-cuts might have to depend on them being able to get/make the parts for cheaper as time goes on and they hopefully expect more sales.
 
Skyzard said:
I see what you're saying, and it's nice the way it is as well, price-cuts might have to depend on them being able to get/make the parts for cheaper as time goes on and they hopefully expect more sales.
Click to expand...

Part of my response was from the other vita bash thread, as someone said to redesign the vita without the oled screen... DAFAQ? That's the glory hole for the vita. Madness around here sometimes. lol
 
shinra-bansho said:
The PSP actually sold reasonably well in SCEE territories, and continues to sell. Last quarter it was the fourth best selling system after the PS3, 360 and 3DS.
Click to expand...
What's up with the software support then? Sorta bizarre. I honestly can't think of any major titles scee put out on psp outside of kzl and lbp, one of which was super early and the other was super late. I couldn't just be misremembering. Kzl is brilliant though.
 
I don't know about Vitas sales performance drastically improving, but I'm definitely happy I bought one, especially with games like Hotline Miami and Stealth Bastard being ported across.

But what happened to Munch's Oddysee? Was it not supposed to be out by now?
 
Father_Brain said:
So almost exactly 5M combined actual sellthrough. Would there be anything implausible about a 2M gap between that and the shipped number? If not, I'll concede that I was probably wrong on the reporting claim.
Click to expand...
I'm confused what you're trying to align now. The 7M number is for through 3 quarters of FY12.

The estimate numbers you asked for are for full year FY12.

I don't know how much the PSP and or PSV sells outside the territories tracked.

But I don't know where you're getting this idea that Sony have "chopped up launch shipments and added them into subsequent quarters." It would likely amount to fraud.
 
shinra-bansho said:
I'm confused what you're trying to align now. The 7M number is for through 3 quarters of FY12.
Click to expand...

Nope, the 7M number is Sony's final forecast for full FY12, but unlike Sony's previous forecasts, it actually seems plausible. The official total for Q1-Q3 is 5.7M shipped.

But I don't know where you're getting this idea that Sony have "chopped up launch shipments and added them into subsequent quarters." It would likely amount to fraud.
Click to expand...

It was based on two things: Sony's very strange decision not to include Vita in their official FY2011 results, and what I believed to be a massive gap between sell-through numbers/the confirmed Q1 FY2012 shipment number and reported shipment totals. If they overshipped by 1.5 to 2 million on top of what was left over from FY2011, which is quite possible, then I was wrong.
 
Father_Brain said:
Nope, the 7M number is Sony's final forecast for full FY12, but unlike Sony's previous forecasts, it actually seems plausible. The official total for Q1-Q3 is 5.7M shipped.
It was based on two things: Sony's very strange decision not to include Vita in their official FY2011 results, and what I believed to be a massive gap between sell-through numbers/the confirmed Q1 FY2012 shipment number and reported shipment totals. If they overshipped by 1.5 to 2 million on top of what was left over from FY2011, which is quite possible, then I was wrong.
Click to expand...
Oh I misread the chart.

At any rate, I'm assuming they'll miss their forecast. Comparing FY forecast to sell through isn't a particularly good gauge of sell-through/shipment ratio.

I imagine they'll end up around 6M full year, which is nothing uncommon. Even 7M wouldn't really be, e.g. off the top of my head, Microsoft and Sony have had PS3/360 sell-through, based on NPC, MC and Nintendo's definition of Europe, around 11M while shipments were around 13M iirc.
 
Bowler said:
I can't believe people are calling for a redesign... Wtf?

I don't understand this... The vita is truly a great piece of kit.

What do people dislike with the OS/hardware?
Click to expand...

They can come out with a cheaper hardware by trimming off the unnecessary things which at the moment, serves only to please the tech geeks, such as the 3G.
 
Just re-release it as a bloody smart-phone hybrid and be done.

Sony, you own the Ericson brand now, so there should be no problems putting phone hardware in PSVITA. There is no dedicated gaming phone on the market now. And no, Xperia play, with its pseudo touch and button controls does not count. At this point, that is the only way to thrive in the western market.

Make it happen, Sony.
 
lordchompy said:
Just re-release it as a bloody smart-phone hybrid and be done.

Sony, you own the Ericson brand now, so there should be no problems putting phone hardware in PSVITA. There is no dedicated gaming phone on the market now. And no, Xperia play, with its pseudo touch and button controls does not count. At this point, that is the only way to thrive in the western market.

Make it happen, Sony.
Click to expand...

Sony made a gaming phone, and it tanked. I don't see them doing it again any time soon.
 
lordchompy said:
Just re-release it as a bloody smart-phone hybrid and be done.

Sony, you own the Ericson brand now, so there should be no problems putting phone hardware in PSVITA. There is no dedicated gaming phone on the market now. And no, Xperia play, with its pseudo touch and button controls does not count. At this point, that is the only way to thrive in the western market.

Make it happen, Sony.
Click to expand...
Didn't Ericsson and Sony separate a few years ago? Vita phone is a horrible idea, regardless.
 
lordchompy said:
Just re-release it as a bloody smart-phone hybrid and be done.

Sony, you own the Ericson brand now, so there should be no problems putting phone hardware in PSVITA. There is no dedicated gaming phone on the market now. And no, Xperia play, with its pseudo touch and button controls does not count. At this point, that is the only way to thrive in the western market.

Make it happen, Sony.
Click to expand...

What a terrible idea, nobody wants two control sticks on their phone.
 
maverick40 said:
What a terrible idea, nobody wants two control sticks on their phone.
Click to expand...

Gasp. Whoever could ever like being able to actually control the games they are playing on a phone.

Ohh, you mean I can just play Temple Run and swipe side to side? My portable gaming dreams have come true!
 
lordchompy said:
Gasp. Whoever could ever like being able to actually control the games they are playing on a phone.

Ohh, you mean I can just play Temple Run and swipe side to side? My portable gaming dreams have come true!
Click to expand...

The controller would have to be an accessory as nobody would buy a phone that has analogue sticks. But an accessory would still mean carrying around a second piece of hardware to play the games.... so since most people already have phones... it doesn't make things simpler. Might as will just stay as a separate device.

I don't get the call for a redesign either. Vita is fine the way it is.
 
Father_Brain said:
Nope, the 7M number is Sony's final forecast for full FY12, but unlike Sony's previous forecasts, it actually seems plausible. The official total for Q1-Q3 is 5.7M shipped.



It was based on two things: Sony's very strange decision not to include Vita in their official FY2011 results, and what I believed to be a massive gap between sell-through numbers/the confirmed Q1 FY2012 shipment number and reported shipment totals. If they overshipped by 1.5 to 2 million on top of what was left over from FY2011, which is quite possible, then I was wrong.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that tbh, the 360 shipped only 1.3m unit from Jan to march. For Sony to meet there forecast it mean only one of two things:

-PSP/Vita have outperformed the 360 during that Q.
-Sony overshipped PSP/Vita during that Q.
 
Bowler said:
I can't believe people are calling for a redesign... Wtf?

I don't understand this... The vita is truly a great piece of kit.

What do people dislike with the OS/hardware?
Click to expand...
No internal memory and propietary memory cards. Vita's entire memory architecture is a problem that needs to be solved before it has any hope of real consumer success.
 
I was wondering with Vita having the ability to remote play all (?) PS4 titles, would it be wise to do PS4 game/Vita bundles?
Maybe take a hit on the game and release the bundle at a price barely above the regular Vita retail price. I think Vita's remote play ability with PS4 could help move a few more units, and something Sony needs to push.

As for the topic, I don't think Vita ever was going to be a big hit. At best it could be a slow burn for Sony as long as they continue supporting it. You really need kids to have a hit handheld, and even Nintendo's losing ground on that front to smartphones. Sony never had much of a shot.
 
shinra-bansho said:
Oh I misread the chart.

At any rate, I'm assuming they'll miss their forecast. Comparing FY forecast to sell through isn't a particularly good gauge of sell-through/shipment ratio.

I imagine they'll end up around 6M full year, which is nothing uncommon. Even 7M wouldn't really be, e.g. off the top of my head, Microsoft and Sony have had PS3/360 sell-through, based on NPC, MC and Nintendo's definition of Europe, around 11M while shipments were around 13M iirc.
Click to expand...

Okay, so I was almost certainly wrong, then.

Thanks to everyone who called me out on this. I'll try to be more careful in the future.
 
So I've actually decided to do some calculations:

Japan Media Create Sales: Week 13, 2013 (Mar 25 - Mar 31) YTD

Vita: 336.059
PSP: 210.110
Total: 546.169 = ~546k
---------------------------

US (Creamsugar NPD leakes)

Jan:

Vita: ~ 34k
PSP: ~ 10k
Total: 44k

Feb:

Vita: 38k
PSP: < 10k
Total: 48k

Mar:
psp<psv<u<ds<wii<ps3<360
360+u>ps3+wii + multiple percentages later.
Math by donny2112: Vita = 33K, PSP = 8k.
Total: 41k

US Total: 44k + 48k + 41k = 133k
------------------
Europe: ????
--------------

Japan + US = 546k + 133k = 679k

These are of course all are sell-through numbers, Sony will report shipped numbers.

What do you guys think? Can Sony meet their forecast?
 
1st Course said:
So I've actually decided to do some calculations:

Japan Media Create Sales: Week 13, 2013 (Mar 25 - Mar 31) YTD

Vita: 336.059
PSP: 210.110
Total: 546.169 = ~546k
---------------------------

US (Creamsugar NPD leakes)

Jan:

Vita: ~ 34k
PSP: ~ 10k
Total: 44k

Feb:

Vita: 38k
PSP: < 10k
Total: 48k

Mar:
psp<psv<u<ds<wii<ps3<360
360+u>ps3+wii + multiple percentages later.
Math by donny2112: Vita = 33K, PSP = 8k.
Total: 41k

US Total: 44k + 48k + 41k = 133k
------------------
Europe: ????
--------------

Japan + US = 546k + 133k = 679k

These are of course all are sell-through numbers, Sony will report shipped numbers.

What do you guys think? Can Sony meet their forecast?
Click to expand...

No way will they meet the forecast, its also likely they were overshipped at the end of the last quarter so new shipments will be low
 
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