Sometimes when people talk about sales, they don't count their personal opinions on how good games are as facts to be added to the discussion.
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Extra Credits: Why the Vita Failed - PlayStation's Lost Gamble
- Thread starter QuickSilverD
- Start date
Sometimes when people talk about sales, they don't count their personal opinions on how good games are as facts to be added to the discussion.
rain elbows
Member
So when something is in a death spiral sales increase year over year? Again, there's no debating 3DS has crushed Vita. I'm saying factually the video is nonsense in many respects.
PSP was never doing this bad. Never. Vita has yet to sell one tenth of what PSP sold and it has a tiny user base compared to basically every single system that is not considered a failure. I really don't get how some people can think Vita is not a commercial failure, it doesn't mean you can't love it or whatever.
As a matter of fact, Vita has been down YoY the last couple of weeks. It had indeed growth, but that growth, even in handheld Japan wasn't substantial.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
The development cost will fall gradually over time. By that time Nintendo will have released a handheld that's slightly better than the vita without proprietary memory card.
The proprietary memory card will become the archille's heel that vita will get stucked with for the rest of its life.
It increases year over year outside of japan too?
rain elbows
Member
Year over year it's up, and even more importantly, it's the only platform still up. Not exactly a death spiral. Again, 3DS has crushed Vita. I own and enjoy them both. Objectively, much of the video is nonsense.
outunderthestars
Banned
Japan is not a large enough market to keep an entire platform afloat. The Vita is pretty much dead in most markets. The thing only sold 3,000 units in the US in April of this year. Even with a new model, and a bundle with its last large western game, is barely cracked 50,000 units in May.
I just don't see how anyone can say that the Vita isn't dying: Most publishers have stopped making games, Sony has announced that they are moving away from making games for it, and sales have cratered in almost every market but Japan.
1.21Gigawatts
Banned
I think Sony made a lot of mistakes with the Vita.
1. They failed to bring many of the best selling IPs on PSP to the Vita.
Usually thats a nobrainer. But not to Sony. Instead of going for handheld sequels to franchises like Monster Hunter, MGS, GTA, GodOfWar and Final Fantasy they tried to bring new IP to the handheld space: Uncharted, COD, AssassinsCreed, Resistance(they last three already where on PSP, but not really in their home console form).
Apparantly they also tried to get Bioshock onto the Vita.
I think that was a huge mistake. Especially in its first year Vita should have gotten some of the IPs that sold extremely well on PSP.
2. Lack of quality.
Uncharted wasn't made by NaughtyDog. BEND did a good job, but Golden Abyss wasn't of NaughtyDog quality.
Resistance wasn't even developed by a 1st party studio, they outsourced it to a pretty bad studio and that showed.
Same thing with COD. COD on Vita could've been huge, but its was so incredibly bad...
AssassinsCreed Liberation also didn't live up to the series standard.
Modnation Racers was so bad most people don't even know it came out for Vita.
Sony advertised Vita as console quality gaming on the go, but the titles intented to show that were sub par compared to their big home console brothers.
They Vita also recieved a bunch of horrible ports. Some of the Ps2 collections are pretty much unplayable. Boarderlands2 is a joke on Vita.
What Sony should've done?
Make sure Monster Hunter and GTA come to the PsVita. Instead of paying for AssassinsCreed and COD they should've paid for GTA and Monster Hunter.
Don't cheap out on Resistance, either let a good studio make it or don't make it at all.
GodOfWar: Ascension, Puppeteer and Little Big Planet: Karting should've been Vita titles, not Ps3.
GranTurismo6 should've been ported to PsVita.
Don't cheap out on ports. Either you release a playable game, or you don't release it at all.
Sony wasted a lot of resources on numerous small titles nobody cared about, there is a huge amount of AR stuff and a huge amount of bad to mediocre titles like Modnation Racers, Resistance and Unit 13.
They could've invested these resources in one or two very good games instead.
1. They failed to bring many of the best selling IPs on PSP to the Vita.
Usually thats a nobrainer. But not to Sony. Instead of going for handheld sequels to franchises like Monster Hunter, MGS, GTA, GodOfWar and Final Fantasy they tried to bring new IP to the handheld space: Uncharted, COD, AssassinsCreed, Resistance(they last three already where on PSP, but not really in their home console form).
Apparantly they also tried to get Bioshock onto the Vita.
I think that was a huge mistake. Especially in its first year Vita should have gotten some of the IPs that sold extremely well on PSP.
2. Lack of quality.
Uncharted wasn't made by NaughtyDog. BEND did a good job, but Golden Abyss wasn't of NaughtyDog quality.
Resistance wasn't even developed by a 1st party studio, they outsourced it to a pretty bad studio and that showed.
Same thing with COD. COD on Vita could've been huge, but its was so incredibly bad...
AssassinsCreed Liberation also didn't live up to the series standard.
Modnation Racers was so bad most people don't even know it came out for Vita.
Sony advertised Vita as console quality gaming on the go, but the titles intented to show that were sub par compared to their big home console brothers.
They Vita also recieved a bunch of horrible ports. Some of the Ps2 collections are pretty much unplayable. Boarderlands2 is a joke on Vita.
What Sony should've done?
Make sure Monster Hunter and GTA come to the PsVita. Instead of paying for AssassinsCreed and COD they should've paid for GTA and Monster Hunter.
Don't cheap out on Resistance, either let a good studio make it or don't make it at all.
GodOfWar: Ascension, Puppeteer and Little Big Planet: Karting should've been Vita titles, not Ps3.
GranTurismo6 should've been ported to PsVita.
Don't cheap out on ports. Either you release a playable game, or you don't release it at all.
Sony wasted a lot of resources on numerous small titles nobody cared about, there is a huge amount of AR stuff and a huge amount of bad to mediocre titles like Modnation Racers, Resistance and Unit 13.
They could've invested these resources in one or two very good games instead.
Freeman
Banned
Where are you getting that information from? That is not true for the only region weekly have numbers, meaning Japan.
Piracy makes sense, but trying to gouge consumers with proprietary storage has been Sony's MO for years and years (hello, Memory Stick!)
rain elbows
Member
Impossible to know, we don't get similar data like Media Create / Famitsu. NPD is largely summarized unless the platform holders release numbers in America. I don't know about Europe. The one market we have independently tracked numbers year over year - Vita is the only platform up. Not exactly a death spiral.
Vita was killed by two groups.
- Hardware team that pushed memory card. Vita 2000 was a great opportunity to fix the wrong. But they were more interested in nailing the coffin than letting vita live
- SCEA: Man I have never seen a publisher that could put out back to back awful titles like SCEA did. It started with Resistance, COD, BL2 port, God of war port, Jak port ... Quality >>> Quantity.
SolidSnakex
Member
I still say the biggest problem with the Vita is that I don't think that most Playstation fans and developers actually want a handheld platform. You could see the lack of interest from the developers very clearly even going back to the PSP. Most of Sony's internal developers never touched the thing. From a fan perspective, you could see some curiosity with the PSP early on, but outside of Japan that dropped off like a rock eventually.
They keep pushing for a handheld console. But their handhelds are more than a generation behind their consoles. So the people that want a console experience will buy an actual console. And that's just a power perspective, it doesn't take into account how the controls aren't up to par with what's expected from consoles.
They keep pushing for a handheld console. But their handhelds are more than a generation behind their consoles. So the people that want a console experience will buy an actual console. And that's just a power perspective, it doesn't take into account how the controls aren't up to par with what's expected from consoles.
LiveFromKyoto
Member
For me the memory cards definitely represented a barrier to entry. It was like $450 to get into the system for me after taxes. It probably needed to be around $200-250 all in.
Freeman
Banned
So true. The prize for beating a potential exploit is failure in this case. If they are trying to profit with Memory Cards they are just dumb and if the Memory Cards are actually that expensive to make they just suck.
As of SCEA, better to do nothing than what they did. Whomever was responsible for their Vita strategy should be fired.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Then you might want to keep in mind that this point of vita increasing its sales by 4k per wk in japan is meaningless if it is free-falling everywhere else.
Freeman
Banned
Actually nope, if does well in Japan it keeps the platform alive.
You sure like relative numbers. 13 thousand is bad for a handheld in Japan. It is so bad, that you won't expect any thirdparty-support that a Playstation console normally gets. It is so bad, that Sony won't bother to develop more software for it. It is so bad, that Sony's handhelds are down YoY since Vita released. It is so bad, that they are still hiding actual numbers. It is that bad.
Yeah, sorry. It started this week.
rain elbows
Member
Who said Japan would "keep it afloat"? I said the arguments in the video are largely nonsense, not that the Vita was successful. The one market where we have solid data it's exactly the opposite from a purported "death spiral." The sales figure quoted appears to bullshit as well. Developer budgets? Objectively, if it's so expensive - why have indies embraced it? The platform is built on digital distribution. I'm saying the arguments are nonsense. If we want to talk about first party software, sure, agree 110%.
Freeman
Banned
By 41 units.
It's mid 2014 and it hasn't reached 3 million units sold in Japan. There's a narrative that Vita is doing great in Japan and it's really not the case.
Jesus! O_O I knew it was bad, not that bad though...
Freeman
Banned
No one ever said its doing great, its doing decently enough for it to survive, specially with the PS4 slow start and 3DS decline.
That1BlackGuy
Member
I still can't believe Sony never green-lighted a Gran Turismo Vita game. In the scenario that Sony couldn't secure follow ups to the PSP's best selling games (Monster Hunter, Dissidia, Final Fantasy VII, Grand Theft Auto, etc.) they still have the IP which was the second best selling game on the PSP.
Why are you getting so hurt about it? I'm just going by what Shuhei Yoshida said.
PS4 falling below WiiU and 3DS reaching saturation doesn't necessarily benefit Vita, especially since Vita can't even reach post-saturation 3DS numbers. And what do you mean by "survive"? They still sell Xbox 360 in Japan, but I wouldn't say it "survided" (for perspective, 360 being a massive bomb in Japan, Vita hasn't been able to even double its numbers).
I don't get the argument that there is some feasible amount of money Sony could give to Capcom to secure MH on their portable. Don't think for a second that MH wouldn't have been a DS game if it had been powerful enough to run it. Capcom looked at who was lined up behind the successor platforms and made an obvious decision.
kunstClick
Neo Member
This is why I don't obsess over the sales figures. I'm GLAD the Vita is more powerful than it "should have been". I would have never played Persona 4 Golden or Danganronpa otherwise!
If that was a bad business decision, I don't care. I'm just going to be quiet and enjoy the system and its games while I can. The same goes for the WiiU. Nintendo gave the fans exactly what they wanted when the 3DS was up against the wall and they're going it again for the WiiU.
If that was a bad business decision, I don't care. I'm just going to be quiet and enjoy the system and its games while I can. The same goes for the WiiU. Nintendo gave the fans exactly what they wanted when the 3DS was up against the wall and they're going it again for the WiiU.
CrazedProfessional
Member
GTA on the PSP kept it alive in the west. Strangely, a fair few IPs that sold gangbusters on the PSP have moved on to new gen exclusives. Sony clearly did not approach as many devs as they did with the PSP.
(I believe the Madden PSP games sold too)
(I believe the Madden PSP games sold too)
AstroNut325
Member
My understanding is that the Vita failed primarily because it was targeting a demographic that simply doesn't want or care for core gaming on the go. That audience is simply satisfied with their iPhones and iPads and those serve numerous purposes beyond gaming making them much more attractive despite the much higher price.
In my circles almost no one likes to play core games on the go as they see it being "anti-social" or "stigmatizing". Plus they simply don't want to carry another device around just for gaming.
In my circles almost no one likes to play core games on the go as they see it being "anti-social" or "stigmatizing". Plus they simply don't want to carry another device around just for gaming.
Freaky Fred
Banned
he forgot the part where Vita means life
To Far Away Times
Member
How many of those games were original software? A system can't survive out of ports alone.
Freeman
Banned
As long as it gets enough games and remain relevant its surviving.
First party AAA games were never a good idea for a portable (save for some exceptions like GTA), its a good thing Sony is moving away from those. If you look at best selling 3DS games, they probably costed way less than SCEA shitty attempts at providing console like games for the Vita.
old
Member
Among some other reasons I didn't buy one because I already had a smartphone with great graphics and access to tons of great games that were either free or much (MUCH) cheaper than vita games.
Why pay an additional $250 to carry around another device? Why pay $40 for games to play on the go when I can pay 99 cents or nothing at all for games that I have just as much fun with?
Why pay an additional $250 to carry around another device? Why pay $40 for games to play on the go when I can pay 99 cents or nothing at all for games that I have just as much fun with?
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
That's the thing...they are hardly relevant now.
AstroNut325
Member
Explain Wii U. It's getting lots of "Original" software.
WiiU is a poorly conceived, designed, named, priced and marketed system with a severe lack of releases. What's there to explain? It launched with plenty of ports which clearly not many people cared to buy.
Since your argument seems to be that ports alone are enough to be successful, explain how it has never worked for any system first.
His main point is
and I don't think anyone can argue against that.
Nintendo has also lost the teen/young adult market for their handheld. And the child portion is shrinking as tablets and smartphones percolate down.
More and more people just don't need a dedicated portable time waster anymore.
It is going to be fascinating to see what Ninty does to change to this new reality.
AstroNut325
Member
That's not my argument. I agree that original software plays a role in the success of a system. But it is not that significant. The core audience the system targets has migrated to new mediums. That's my argument.
encephalon
Member
The Vita was a lost cause in the US, but the failure to bring over the 3rd party support the PSP enjoyed in Japan did the most damage to the platform. Well, aside from the fact that there's less interest in handheld platforms from Japanese developers (read: Square Enix) in general these days.
What always bothered me about the Vita is that I never got the impression that it was important to Sony. Sure they'd say the right things but their actions said something else. By comparison Nintendo had their TOP teams developing games for the 3DS. They still are. They didn't pawn things off to some lower tier team or third party when it really mattered. No Super Mario 3D Land was developed by the Super Mario Galaxy team. It wasn't a spin-off but THE next 3D Mario game. A start of a new style of 3D platformer for Mario that lead to 3D World on the Wii U. The 7th installment to Mario Kart was on the 3DS and it was treated with the importance it deserved. The same thing went for the GBA and DS Mario Karts in the past. They had the next installed to Luigi's Mansion on the system and gave Next Level Games the time and guidance they needed to make a stellar game. These are just some examples but I never saw the equivalence of that with Sony.
One thing that hasn't been brought up yet is that you can't find a new Vita online for its retail price. The only ones on Amazon are marked up by 3rd party vendors.
So the Borderlands bundle with the new model has breezed some life back into the system. It will be interesting to see how the PlayStation TV does when it's released later this year.
I don't see the Vita suddenly exploding in popularity and blowing past the 3DS, but it might still be able to carve out its own like niche and stick around.
If Internet was better around the world remote play would take off to insane proportions. Take a place like South Korea where you have lightening fast WiFi available to you where ever you go and everyone has gigabit lines.
So the Borderlands bundle with the new model has breezed some life back into the system. It will be interesting to see how the PlayStation TV does when it's released later this year.
I don't see the Vita suddenly exploding in popularity and blowing past the 3DS, but it might still be able to carve out its own like niche and stick around.
If Internet was better around the world remote play would take off to insane proportions. Take a place like South Korea where you have lightening fast WiFi available to you where ever you go and everyone has gigabit lines.
3DS being at ~40 million systems sold, how come the 3DS-Vita disparity is so huge when it wasn't that bad with PSP? I can't see any other explanation, 3DS got more popular exclusives and a better price point. 3DS got huge in Japan when Mario and Monster Hunter arrived, so original software is absolutely a big role in the success of a system.
clay_ghost
Member
umm Danganronpa was a psp port and I am sure even the 3DS can run p4 golden.... The vita power had not helped those two games lol
MikeE21286
Member
It's a device people don't want really....
Any resources they really focus/dedicate to it are an opportunity cost in comparison to what they could be doing on PS4
Any resources they really focus/dedicate to it are an opportunity cost in comparison to what they could be doing on PS4
Trigonometrize.
Member
I stop listening to anyone's commentary on the Vita as soon as I hear "no games"
Sometimes I wonder and get curious which gaffers are tied to which of these blogs/vlogs/sites and whatnot because there are always new ones that pop up with stores and insights ...these websites that I have never heard of and have no reason to give a shit and am given no real buffer why this site should be worth the time to listen to.
In this case I think the Vita fell for what was all the rage at the time, and that was trying to be many things where it should have been a portable game system and sold as such.
The 3DS has no illusions about its station, but no Sony had to get all overly ambitious with the Vita and promise the moon.
I think they alienated alot of content in the early days by trying to be a portable PS3 and pretending that all games would and had to be in that vein, when people want handheld experiences also and they have come around but in the early days it was different.
In this case I think the Vita fell for what was all the rage at the time, and that was trying to be many things where it should have been a portable game system and sold as such.
The 3DS has no illusions about its station, but no Sony had to get all overly ambitious with the Vita and promise the moon.
I think they alienated alot of content in the early days by trying to be a portable PS3 and pretending that all games would and had to be in that vein, when people want handheld experiences also and they have come around but in the early days it was different.