Judging Vita before its first Christmas is "preposterous" - Sony

If the Vita had mainline sequels, I wouldn't be arguing, but it doesn't. It has the usual Sony stunted offshoots that they plagued the PSP with as well.

Have you played WipEout 2048, Uncharted GA or LittleBigPlanet?

I wouldn't call any of them 'stunted'.
 
Can't a person be a fan of 3DS and want Vita to do good at the same time? :(

1: NEW SUPER MARIO BROS 2
2: SUPER MARIO 3D LAND
3: MARIO KART 7
4: MARIO & SONIC LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES
5: FIFA 13
6: SONIC GENERATIONS
7: NEW ART ACADEMY
8: LEGO BATMAN 2: DC SUPER HEROES
9: THEATRHYTHM: FINAL FANTASY
10: ANGRY BIRDS TRILOGY

Oh god, what the hell. Isn't it around 30€?
 
Have you played WipEout 2048, Uncharted GA or LittleBigPlanet?

I wouldn't call any of them 'stunted'.

Excuse me if I can't get excited about the 9th Wipeout game, or the fourth uncharted or littlebigplanet game in as many years. I heard uncharted was shorter and less interesting than even the first PS3 game as well.
 
Have you played WipEout 2048, Uncharted GA or LittleBigPlanet?

I wouldn't call any of them 'stunted'.

I would go as far as saying that Uncharted GA is actually better than U3.
It's certainly not as bloated and devoid of focus as U3 was.
Even LBP controls better on Vita.

It's not the lack of quality, it's Sonys incompetence when it comes to push these games as a plattform defining piece of software.

You could argue that the PS2 sold on GT3 and GTA3 for the most part. And even though a superior GTA3 port was released on xbox and PC later, the GTA series defined the PS2.
Obviously it wasn't just Sonys marketing but also word of mouth that got those games into their respective positions, but word of mouth itself is worthless when the company behind the product isn't able to get off their collective asses to find a coherent strategy for the system.
 
Is it not fair to say then, that the statement "people don't want cut down offshoots and ports" is entirely incorrect?

Its an old meme from the PSP era - Vita doesn't apply to it as much as some claim.
Its Christmas line up is a bit too close to the console line up though; BLOPS 2 fits the PSP criticism but goes below it by being 100% shit and just an exercise in branding; AC is looking like it'll have its own identity but this won't stop it struggling to compete for word of mouth/articles against its bigger brother.
 
I would go as far as saying that Uncharted GA is actually better than U3.
It's certainly not as bloated and devoid of focus as U3 was.
Even LBP controls better on Vita.

It's not the lack of quality, it's Sonys incompetence when it comes to push these games as a plattform defining piece of software.

You could argue that the PS2 sold on GT3 and GTA3 for the most part. And even though a superior GTA3 port was released on xbox and PC later, the GTA series defined the PS2.
Obviously it wasn't just Sonys marketing but also word of mouth that got those games into their respective positions, but word of mouth itself is worthless when the company behind the product isn't able to get off their collective asses to find a coherent strategy for the system.

Ps2 lived on GTA, GT, MGS, FF. FF and GT show signs of decline since, MGS and GTA are not (timed) exclusive anymore. And beaten in popularity by the likes of CoD. Which gets more promotion on 360, as is the case with the booming FPS genre and online play in general.
 
Excuse me if I can't get excited about the 9th Wipeout game, or the fourth uncharted or littlebigplanet game in as many years. I heard uncharted was shorter and less interesting than even the first PS3 game as well.

Then what games do you want? Vita right now has some good retail games mixed with great DL games.
 
If the Vita had mainline sequels, I wouldn't be arguing, but it doesn't. It has the usual Sony stunted offshoots that they plagued the PSP with as well.

We want original handheld focused titles, not console me-toos.

no, we want a mini PS3 with exactly the same games.

no, we want brand new IPs to drive the platform

no, we want sequels to established franchises

no, we want lots of indie games

no, we want big blockbuster franchises.


I don't think we know what we want, unless Sony just delivers *everything* and we cherry pick. Not sure thats practical though.

Maybe thats part of the problem. Sony needs to create an identity for the Vita. Nintendo have that easy - its a box that goes in your pocket that plays Nintendo games. Yet a Sony version of the same proposition doesn't seem to be as appealing to as many people?
 
Excuse me if I can't get excited about the 9th Wipeout game, or the fourth uncharted or littlebigplanet game in as many years. I heard uncharted was shorter and less interesting than even the first PS3 game as well.

You love the game where you move the goalposts though, don't you?
 
I think Vita has potential in the west this Christmas. The fact is Assassin's Creed and COD are strong franchises and the spin-offs could do well (the GTA spin-offs did pretty well in pushing the PSP in the west..initially at least).

I do think Vita has stronger new titles than 3DS does for western markets this Christmas (although i suppose Nintendo can do a new push for older titles like Mario kart 7). I wouldn't be that shocked if vita went toe to toe with 3DS this holiday (it's Japan where Sony has really dropped the ball and Nintendo is on fire....I can see it being much more even in the west).

Nintendo really could have done with Luigi's Mansion 2 and at least a port of Majora's Mask from Grezzo this year..as well as not giving the new Paper Mario a name that is designed to put off anyone over 5.
 
Excuse me if I can't get excited about the 9th Wipeout game, or the fourth uncharted or littlebigplanet game in as many years. I heard uncharted was shorter and less interesting than even the first PS3 game as well.

Wipeout is mainline game - and i don't know where you get 9th one since we only got 1+expansion on PS3+ 2 on PSP in last 5 years.
 
I think Vita has potential in the west this Christmas. The fact is Assassin's Creed and COD are strong franchises and the spin-offs could do well (the GTA spin-offs did pretty well in pushing the PSP in the west..initially at least).

I do think Vita has stronger new titles than 3DS does for western markets this Christmas (although i suppose Nintendo can do a new push for older titles like Mario kart 7). I wouldn't be that shocked if vita went toe to toe with 3DS this holiday (it's Japan where Sony has really dropped the ball and Nintendo is on fire....I can see it being much more even in the west).

Nintendo really could have done with Luigi's Mansion 2 and at least a port of Majora's Mask from Grezzo this year..as well as not giving the new Paper Mario a name that is designed to put off anyone over 5.

Price barrier is still far too big. At most people think of Vita as a novelty (same with the 3DS outside of handheld hardcore), A $169-150 novelty is a far easier sell than a $250 novelty. Especially when competing against established must have things in the same space (ipads tablets etc)

The fact that similar and most likely publically considered superior games of the same franchises releasing on consoles people already have won't help this either.

Either way unless Sony's marketing team is on the ball, I think Vita will have a tough time this Christmas.
 
Yes and no.
Yes because it takes some time before a system its true potential (sale-wise).
No because Vita sales in Japan and abroad are very low and it is becoming apparent that Vita have hard time to get a constant flow of games (it is generally so in early lifespan but western disinterest coupled with low hardware sales in Japan makes it particularly vulnerable)
 
It's a spinoff. And it will be seen as a spinoff and treated as a spinoff. It doesn't matter how much like the mainline games it is. Nobody's going to care when the game they've been waiting for comes out on the same day.

I am... but that's only because of the delay of the PC version :(
 
As much as I would like to buy a Vita, there are still practically no games on the system that I really want. I just wish there were some proper JRPGs for the Vita. I can play all my PSP and PSone RPGs on my PSP, so I don't see the reason in buying a Vita just for that.

Maybe later on when FFX HD is out, but for now I just look at most of the titles for the system and am not that impressed.
 
Excuse me if I can't get excited about the 9th Wipeout game, or the fourth uncharted or littlebigplanet game in as many years. I heard uncharted was shorter and less interesting than even the first PS3 game as well.

Can't get excited about the best handheld game of the year?

Sucks for you.
 
Then what games do you want? Vita right now has some good retail games mixed with great DL games.

I already said it. Drop most/all the retail sequels (I seriously don't understand how people can get excited by another wipeout, twisted metal, resistance, killzone, lbp, uncharted etc. etc. in such rapid succession) and put out more stuff like Gravity Rush. I can't describe more fully what doesn't exist.

I know it's easy for me to sit here and say 'just be creative', and I know that pushing new gameplay* is a harder sell but on the other hand I can't see the point in buying portable versions of games that are already being churned out a little too quickly on the consoles (apart from the one game that I think would allow the Vita to explode if done right - GT).



* this is a much better term than "new IP", which just makes me think it's going to be another fucking FPS or open world hero game with a different lead character. I don't care if it's a parkour game starring nathan drake as long as it's something I've not played before
 
I wouldn't call it the best handheld game of the year, but it is by far the best LBP game so far in my eyes. The game feels like it's always been tailored for the system all along.

It's very easily the best handheld game I've played all year. And yes, I've played all the major ones. A real contender for for overall GOTY too. It is out-fucking-standing.
 
The current discussion regarding Vita vs 3DS is laughably wide of the point.

Its about time the Vita started to stand on its own two feet, rather than these petulant and childish swipes at a (massively) more successful product.

If the big wigs at Sony are listing reasons why the 3DS isn't so great (No new IP's! Ports! One nub! More Mario!) while scratching their heads wondering while its still selling, like some in this thread are, no wonder the system is underperforming.
 
Honestly, he's right. Vita in the West still have to pass through its first Holiday period. Every final judgment about it cannot be definitve
 
Honestly, he's right. Vita in the West still have to pass through its first Holiday period. Every final judgment about it cannot be definitve

Which still doesnt change the fact that since launch the sales in the west have been awful and to ignore these just because xmas hasnt happened yet is silly.

It was the same with 'wait to e3', 'wait to vita heaven', 'wait to TGS'.
 
Honestly, he's right. Vita in the West still have to pass through its first Holiday period. Every final judgment about it cannot be definitve

there are less than 800,000 vitas sold to customers in its first eight months on the market. to compare it to another initially slow-moving sony product, it's pretty close to what the ps3 sold in its first two months.

i think vita's sales need to be put into perspective. the ds looked near death in 2005, and it sold 59k in one month. the vita hasn't been able to cross that threshold in a while. these numbers are dreamcast-bad.
 
The current discussion regarding Vita vs 3DS is laughably wide of the point.

Its about time the Vita started to stand on its own two feet, rather than these petulant and childish swipes at a (massively) more successful product.

If the big wigs at Sony are listing reasons why the 3DS isn't so great (No new IP's! Ports! One nub! More Mario!) while scratching their heads wondering while its still selling, like some in this thread are, no wonder the system is underperforming.
I haven't seen anyone at Sony say anything like that.
 
The current discussion regarding Vita vs 3DS is laughably wide of the point.
Actually it's bang on. If people are looking at the Vita library as sequels, spin-offs and ports, it would be daft to omit the fact that the exact same criticism can be levelled at a far more successful direct competitor.

Its about time the Vita started to stand on its own two feet, rather than these petulant and childish swipes at a (massively) more successful product.
It does stand on its own two feet, it's just that not many people care. The 'swipes' aren't 'petulant and childish', they're perfectly accurate.

If the big wigs at Sony are listing reasons why the 3DS isn't so great (No new IP's! Ports! One nub! More Mario!) while scratching their heads wondering while its still selling, like some in this thread are, no wonder the system is underperforming.

....but they're not. If they are looking at the 3DS (and they ought to be), it'll be to see what it's doing right, not what it's doing wrong.
 
....but they're not. If they are looking at the 3DS (and they ought to be), it'll be to see what it's doing right, not what it's doing wrong.

There is an enormous market for the Playstation brand still and it has very little to do with what Nintendo is doing right.
 
....but they're not. If they are looking at the 3DS (and they ought to be), it'll be to see what it's doing right, not what it's doing wrong.

unfortunately for them, the 3ds isn't doing much right, either. nintendo just happens to have franchises that appeal to people that have been built up over decades. sony's had poor luck or planning or both when it comes to that sort of thing. nintendo hasn't done anything spectacular with the 3ds itself, which is why it's just kinda doing okay.
 
There is an enormous market for the Playstation brand still and it has very little to do with what Nintendo is doing right.
I still think they could learn a trick or two from Nintendo. The first being 'put your best teams on your biggest franchises and get 'em out there ASAP'.

unfortunately for them, the 3ds isn't doing much right, either. nintendo just happens to have franchises that appeal to people that have been built up over decades. sony's had poor luck or planning or both when it comes to that sort of thing. nintendo hasn't done anything spectacular with the 3ds itself, which is why it's just kinda doing okay.
Agreed, but as I said above, best teams, biggest franchises. They might not have a 'Mario' or a 'Zelda' but they do have Gran Turismo and so far, not a whisper. Polyphony ought to be chained to their desks working on that bad boy by now.

Ultimately though, it's still pretty early in the devices lifetime. It doesn't need to be a raging success to justify it's continued existence. It could be another PSP, an also-ran that is still 'successful' in some terms.
 
Which still doesnt change the fact that since launch the sales in the west have been awful and to ignore these just because xmas hasnt happened yet is silly.

It was the same with 'wait to e3', 'wait to vita heaven', 'wait to TGS'.


there are less than 800,000 vitas sold to customers in its first eight months on the market. to compare it to another initially slow-moving sony product, it's pretty close to what the ps3 sold in its first two months.

i think vita's sales need to be put into perspective. the ds looked near death in 2005, and it sold 59k in one month. the vita hasn't been able to cross that threshold in a while. these numbers are dreamcast-bad.



Wait:
my personal feedback about Vita's sales: very negative. It's struggling to sell ww, even in Japan. There are reasons, but it's doing bad in all the markets.

And comparing it to 3DS saying "3DS too isn't selling very hot" is laughable IMHO (not repeating the best DS numbers in the West, but being still able - thx to key franchises - to put overall sufficient numbers in the West and great numbers in Japan is VERY different from a console that is NOT selling at all or near to that) especially because not only the actual results are much different, but also because the reasons why 3DS is selling are hardly repeteable by Vita (first party franchises, strong DS brand against very weak PSP brand awarness in the West after the initial good period, price, kid demographics and so on)

I'm just saying that in the West, we still don't know which could be the reaction of the market under determinate importante circumstancies: holidays purchases + key western-franchises (like CoD or AC and so on)

Judgments after Xmas 2012 will be more "reliable", imho
 
Ultimately though, it's still pretty early in the devices lifetime. It doesn't need to be a raging success to justify it's continued existence. It could be another PSP, an also-ran that is still 'successful' in some terms.

Not disagreeing with your other points but by all measurements the PSP was a huge success; it was just second to the DS. Vita isn't anything like the PSP.

A better example would be Xbox/Gamecube. More so Xbox considering the price (seriously, everyone should have just bought a Gamecube no matter what they owned). That takes significant investment though (their not Nintendo so they don't have enough software to sell nor do they have another console to prop up the company (atm)).

We shouldn't use PSP in these sorts of examples, it was actually very successful.
 
Wait:
my personal feedback about Vita's sales: very negative. It's struggling to sell ww, even in Japan. There are reasons, but it's doing bad in all the markets.

And comparing it to 3DS saying "3DS too isn't selling very hot" is laughable IMHO (not repeating the best DS numbers in the West, but being still able - thx to key franchises - to put overall sufficient numbers in the West and great numbers in Japan is VERY different from a console that is NOT selling at all or near to that) especially because not only the actual results are much different, but also because the reasons why 3DS is selling are hardly repeteable by Vita (first party franchises, strong DS brand against very weak PSP brand awarness in the West after the initial good period, price, kid demographics and so on)

I'm just saying that in the West, we still don't know which could be the reaction of the market under determinate importante circumstancies: holidays purchases + key western-franchises (like CoD or AC and so on)

Judgments after Xmas 2012 will be more "reliable", imho

3ds hardware sales are decent, but software sales are really horrible outside maybe 10-15 games. the vita is worse, but the ds made people money. i think this may be the generation that makes nintendo go back to a game boy style handheld, and maybe get sony into making games for phones or something. if the vita has a 2013 like its 2012, it won't have a 2014.
 
3ds hardware sales are decent, but software sales are really horrible outside maybe 10-15 games. the vita is worse, but the ds made people money. i think this may be the generation that makes nintendo go back to a game boy style handheld, and maybe get sony into making games for phones or something. if the vita has a 2013 like its 2012, it won't have a 2014.

Well, Nintendo HW numbers are decent in the west, great in Japan. SW-wise, Nintendo titles are selling well also oversea, while in Japan also TP are obtaining very good results. That's the reason why I think that they'll keep the DS-style approach if the gen will continue like this (GB primarly was the spinoff-porting console, and I don't see them going back to that approach).
I agree that Vita needs to make a turning-point, I'm just saying that the turning-point could be seen in Holidays sales + Key western franchises (plus a price cut in 2013)
 
There just aren´t many appealing games, often I get the impression that some PSV owners even buy mediocre games just to justify their purchase. Also there is even less to look forward to (2013) and looking at how PSV performs it really doesn´t look like many projects were greenlit in the past months. Obviously it PSV will sell more than 40k-50k units it sold the past months in December but to be honest that´s an easy task.
 
3ds hardware sales are decent, but software sales are really horrible outside maybe 10-15 games. the vita is worse, but the ds made people money. i think this may be the generation that makes nintendo go back to a game boy style handheld, and maybe get sony into making games for phones or something. if the vita has a 2013 like its 2012, it won't have a 2014.

In the West, we've seen many third party games doing well.

SSFIV 3D Edition
Skylanders
Sonic Generations
The various Lego releases
Harvest Moon debuted well in Germany, its biggest market in Europe ( the DS port, I mean)
KH3D did well in Europe and didn't debut bad in USA
Tales of the Abyss should be near what the original did in US, and it outdid Namco's forecasts in Europe.
And we've just seen how Angry Birds Trilogy outdid PS3+360 SKUs combined in its first 5 days ( little numbers, but it's the first five days)

It's not like there aren't flops ( the major one in the West: Revelation; the major one in Japan: Kingdom Hearts), but there are many games which did well, or even very well.

During this Holiday season, we'll probably see good results for Layton, Scribblenauts, Epic Mickey, Sonic & Sega, Skylanders, Lego, etc.etc. which should show a better health for 3DS environment in the West.
 
I still think they could learn a trick or two from Nintendo. The first being 'put your best teams on your biggest franchises and get 'em out there ASAP'.


Agreed, but as I said above, best teams, biggest franchises. They might not have a 'Mario' or a 'Zelda' but they do have Gran Turismo and so far, not a whisper. Polyphony ought to be chained to their desks working on that bad boy by now.

Ultimately though, it's still pretty early in the devices lifetime. It doesn't need to be a raging success to justify it's continued existence. It could be another PSP, an also-ran that is still 'successful' in some terms.


I still think the loss of MH damaged the Vita way more than it seems. Had the console featured those games at launch, Vita would be big in Japan right now, perhaps going head to head with the 3Ds in terms of success, which means more money, more teams jumping the ship, more games and more sales around the world. Really, Nintendo hammered them hard with that one. Recovering in Japan is pretty much bloody impossible at this point
 
Ultimately though, it's still pretty early in the devices lifetime. It doesn't need to be a raging success to justify it's continued existence. It could be another PSP, an also-ran that is still 'successful' in some terms.
Doesn't look like it will be another PSP though nor like it is comparable to 3DS before the pricecut.
 
perhaps try the TGS 2012 Game of the Year winning Gravity Rush/Daze from Sony, on the Vita?

Surely that indicates -some- effort?

An original game on a new platform winning that award ahead of some strong competition says something right? (i sense the answer is "lol no" but hey...)


(this isn't to say that the Vita doesn't have a mountain of problems to sort out - or that Sony haven't screwed up a ton of aspects regarding marketting, the Memory stick farce etc. Just that -at least- they have got one new strong IP out of the thing!)

GD is one of my "must get" games when i finally decide to buy a Vita.But as it is now there's not much else that personally interests me in terms of software.I'll be waiting until Soul Sacrifice,God Eater 2,Ys and PSO 2 are all released in the west before i decide to buy one.

Still i think Sony needs to do much more in terms of first party software as well as investing on deals with third party collaborations if they really want to start making the system desirable enough for more third parties to start developing original games for it.
 
I don't really like LittleBigPlanet, Golden Abyss, Tales From Space and Gravity Rush; I just pretend I do to justify my Vita purchase. Truth be told, they're all pretty mediocre games.
 
Anyone disagrees?

I don't know but this still amaze me each time I jump into a vita thread. Those games are console games, not handhelds. Of course you will not have the full console experience, and that is to me the main reason why the vita, and the psp too, have not succeeded. Lack of true handheld games. People have a greater experience on X360, ps3, and Wii U soon with both ACIII, FIFA and CoD. And they already have those systems (speaking of HD twins of course) so they are not gonna be systems sellers for the vita. It take so long to sony to understand that, it's ridiculous. And they gave you the twit about more cash into marketing. But ok, we will speak about that after christmas.
 
Actually it's bang on. If people are looking at the Vita library as sequels, spin-offs and ports, it would be daft to omit the fact that the exact same criticism can be levelled at a far more successful direct competitor.

I think the key difference is that - in many cases, albeit not all - the 'sequels' on the 3DS are sequels of titles that had a significant handheld presence beforehand. Sure, it's got another Layton, another Mario, another Monster Hunter (in Japan) - but those are titles that people associate with handhelds, so when they're hearing about the next game in the series they love, they'd be looking for the platform it's released on.

Sony's job is to take the - perfectly adequate - titles they have and introduce them to people who play on handhelds. A Layton player could well be tempted by Escape Plan; a Mario player might be persuaded to try out Little Big Planet. A Monster Hunter fan should be convertable to a Soul Sacrifice fan. They need to somehow make the mass market make that mental association.

The 3DS has franchises that handheld players know. The Vita - generally, there are exceptions (how did the PSP Wipeouts do?) - doesn't.


Hindsight is 20/20, but *had* Sony created a healthy popular handheld brand on the PSP - one they *owned*, unlike MH - the Vita iteration of it would have put the system in a *much* stronger position right now. Miku's probably the best bet, and we saw how much that drove sales in Japan for its launch week, although it died down after. Similar things for Persona; PSP releases set the foundation, and Persona 4 again caused a noticeable sales spike... but both those are only in Japan, and both those only lasted a few weeks because they're still somewhat on the niche side.
 
it's not my problem though. This is a platform sales thread.

when y try to give an opinion on games that u have "heard" well,its a problem to your credibility

I don't know but this still amaze me each time I jump into a vita thread. Those games are console games, not handhelds. Of course you will not have the full console experience, and that is to me the main reason why the vita, and the psp too, have not succeeded. Lack of true handheld games.

excuse me but this is the old bs nintendo fans star spreading when the psps arrives,they dont have any problems with big meaty games on portables ( marios,zeldas,etc) but alas its in another system and its not a "portable game" so next luigi o resident evil dimensions or even half the 3ds line up is in that situation too no?gimme a break man
 
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