I'm not doubting the quality so much as I'm doubting the attitude of people towards handheld games in general. Sony's definitely not placing an emphasis on handheld games as much as their console games; Nintendo treats their console and handheld with equal emphasis, and has their own top studios work on both consoles and handhelds. I'm not saying the Sony business model is wrong, it just doesn't help the mainstream perception.
PlayStation Vita Sales See Massive Spike in Japan (nearly six times increase)
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I'm not doubting the quality so much as I'm doubting the attitude of people towards handheld games in general. Sony's definitely not placing an emphasis on handheld games as much as their console games; Nintendo treats their console and handheld with equal emphasis, and has their own top studios work on both consoles and handhelds. I'm not saying the Sony business model is wrong, it just doesn't help the mainstream perception.
And all of this proves that you aren't paying attention to the post you replied to. At all.
The 250K number you have is tied entirely to retail sales for Japan alone. Since Sony doesn't release digital distro numbers you have no idea what it's actually doing on software.
So now you are not only trying to move the goal posts to the software side of sales but also trying to base conclusions off of fragmented data.
Again, retail software numbers are not nearly as relevant for the Vita as they have been for previous hardware. Digital distro is a significant game changer for the device.
The only thing they lose to weak retail sales is the support of major 3rd parties, which they don't have and can't get anyway as the 3DS is a far larger market.
Why?
You haven't made a real compelling argument as to why the Vita is so amazingly doomed, just trotted out spurious correlations to previous hardware. Sony isn't Sega or Namco Bandai, they have a long history of supporting their hardware long term and re-positioning it as needed to find new avenues for profit (PS3 is one recent video game example, but Betamax is probably the company's best example overall).
The Vita was clearly built with a Nintendo style business model in mind in the event that it did not have a strong initial outing in the market. The hardware does not produce loss, the peripherals make nice profit, the first party heavy lineup and distribution channel is giving Sony greater per unit profits on software sales, and the format is conducive to smaller developers looking for a niche. Nintendo typically gets the smaller traditional 3rd party pubs and partnerships with 2nd party studios, whereas Sony is instead now targeting indie studios.
This model is safe and it works in this industry if you know your target customer. Nintendo is not employing it with the 3DS because they became what Sony was with the PS2 - the massive vessel upon which all the major 3rd parties are riding. That is why when 3DS sales stumbled out of the gate Nintendo chose to incur hardware losses like they've never done before. They had to meet expectations of their 3rd party partners. Vita has not done that because Sony's price point isn't going to sway major 3rd parties to their side and would instead truly hinder the device's long term outlook.
Also, indie/second tier titles actually are highly relevant and out of nowhere games are setting monthly profit records all the time. Puzzle & Dragons has daily sales of $2M USD a day. It's a nine figure annual sales monster that eclipses anything else in Japan's gaming market and it came from an out of nowhere publisher (who have already released a unique Vita title by the way).
As long as titles like Puzzle & Dragons, Angry Birds, MineCraft, etc. can dominate handheld devices via F2P models and competitive pricing we'll either see the dedicated handheld market react or contract. Right now it's doing a whole lot of the later. Sony is only just now starting to position the Vita to take advantage of this groundswell, while Nintendo has done very little at all.
The business model for Vita has been proven in this industry before. Assuming Sony is unable to maintain it when they are doing so currently and have done so before is extreme pessimism. If they are unable to maintain any of this momentum (or the momentum gained from Soul Sacrifice) or if they lame duck the trade shows then the skies will start to darken, but as it stands now Sony has a lot of moves left to make with the Vita before shutting it down/relegating it to a PS4 peripheral.
did Nintendo make money during that period? yes. did it put them out of the console market? no. Did the GC have some all time classic games? yes. I'd call that success.
If Sony was even close to "last ditch" efforts with the Vita they wouldn't have given PS4>Vita connectivity as much time at the PS4 unveil as they did.
Also, coming down to $199 a year after release when they were close to breaking even at $250 for launch isn't a particularly drastic cut and likely means they're still at or close to breaking even per unit.
It made Nintendo money and allowed them to establish some worthwhile franchises (Pikmin, Retro's Metroid run).
Releasing new hardware is a gamble. Nintendo up until the 3DS and Wii U lived their entire life ensuring that the "loss" on that gamble was at worse a profitable 5 year system like the Gamecube. Sony has more or less copied that same model with the Vita. It looks like their gamble on the Vita is a "loss" but that loss is still likely to be a 5+ year handheld with meaningful software released on it.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Because the end result is Wii U, and Sony doesn't want PS4 releasing with no games. Sony's top priorty is their consoles.
michaelius
Banned
First price drop which drives entry price to 25K yens with memory card is last ditch effort ?
you make fine points but seem to skirt around the big picture.
we're looking at a platform that has maybe 3.5 million units sold (we don't know because Sony won't give us numbers) after 2 holidays in the most important region for handhelds. America has an even more grim outlook, as smart phones and tablets have stripped away most of the handheld market of last gen. same goes for Europe, so the overall sales potential outside of Japan is very low.
by not taking immediate action Sony has ventured far down a one way road in which publishers are completely bullish and retailers are minimizing Vita's shelf space. I see it in every electronics store I go to, and many other people report the same thing. It's a vicious cycle that will leave Sony swimming upstream until they are left with no games in the pipeline and only select retailers still supplying it. the rich (3DS) get richer and the poor get less.
after Soul Sacrifice, what hope is left?
we're looking at a platform that has maybe 3.5 million units sold (we don't know because Sony won't give us numbers) after 2 holidays in the most important region for handhelds. America has an even more grim outlook, as smart phones and tablets have stripped away most of the handheld market of last gen. same goes for Europe, so the overall sales potential outside of Japan is very low.
by not taking immediate action Sony has ventured far down a one way road in which publishers are completely bullish and retailers are minimizing Vita's shelf space. I see it in every electronics store I go to, and many other people report the same thing. It's a vicious cycle that will leave Sony swimming upstream until they are left with no games in the pipeline and only select retailers still supplying it. the rich (3DS) get richer and the poor get less.
after Soul Sacrifice, what hope is left?
yeah,
If Sony shifted all their resources to Vita, too late , PS4 launch will be much more worse than wiiu and the nextbox will gain the initial lead again. ending up losing both handheld and console market.
Sony is behaving exactly as companies do before they give up on a product, cutting their losses by NOT cutting the price of the product, and providing generic PR rather than taking action. It's possible Sony is trying to keep it alive until they successfully launch PS4.
grimshawish
Banned
I suppose its a measure of the degree to which people are holding back on the purchase.
Important for us all to also accept the 3DS would have been big in Q4 2011 without a price cut; only no where near as big or the longer term success it has become.
Price cut just makes the software/hardware combo more affordable. It puts the Vita in a better position for any new release it has. If the price were lower maybe other bumps would have been bigger.
michaelius
Banned
Ahh right this must be a reason why they invested time and resources in improving remote play with ps4 option for vita.
Sony should invest in more Japanese developers. It's obvious western developers are better of on consoles as consoles are more popular in the west.
Sony own a ton of Japanese IPs, I'd like to see
Shadow of Colossus 2, which focuses on multiplayer
Demon Soul's 2, which takes a few things from Monster Hunter
Locoroco 3, which uses Vita's gyro and touchpads
Gravity Rush 2, which improved on the negatives of the original
Journey, yes a port of this game is needed, perhaps with some additional features
Gran Turismo Vita, Sony's best selling IP needs at least one game in the systems life and not too late like GT Mobile
Sony own a ton of Japanese IPs, I'd like to see
Shadow of Colossus 2, which focuses on multiplayer
Demon Soul's 2, which takes a few things from Monster Hunter
Locoroco 3, which uses Vita's gyro and touchpads
Gravity Rush 2, which improved on the negatives of the original
Journey, yes a port of this game is needed, perhaps with some additional features
Gran Turismo Vita, Sony's best selling IP needs at least one game in the systems life and not too late like GT Mobile
Maybe remote play is their last straw. They should know by now that they are out of options that don´t include blowing a tremendous amount of money, so they hope for a miracle (which won´t come obviously).
What kind of immediate action? Slashing the price? Sony isn't losing money yet, that would make them start to lose money. You can float an unsuccessful cost neutral product much longer than a slightly less unsuccessful loss leader.
After Soul Sacrifice comes KZ:Mercs, Tearaway, probably another Gravity Rush, and something else from Sony Bend, just off the top of my head. GT Vita is also TBD and would be the biggest game changer for Europe anyone could possibly drop. A God of War Vita also seems highly likely, though probably not by the core GoW team. There are TONS of Sony first party shoes to drop before saying they're in last ditch territory.
This also ignores the impact some key indie titles could make. How big of an impact do you think a fully accurate version of MineCraft on a portable could make, as opposed to the current gimped MineCraft portable? Something like that could be huge. Or paying GungHo to bring Puzzle & Dragons to Vita with exclusive content? Likely not terribly expensive and could be a complete game changer in Japan.
The Vita is never going to be a 100M seller. We all know that. But if it claws it's way into the low 20M range it can still be a profitable product line and a stop gap before Sony merges their smartphone and portable gaming ventures via Gaikai, which is the entire point of it after all.
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
Damn, drek is killing it.
This.Many people may have not realised it but this can be the biggest Sony franchise in Japan after Gran Turismo.Take a look the Dark Souls numbers in Japan.The game combined with Artorias expansion have reached 600.000 units.The only game that can achieve or surpass that number in Japan is Gran Turismo.Not even Hot Shots Gold that is not as strong as PS2 days.
If Sony havent started development on Demon Souls 2 yet then.....i am without words.
shinra-bansho
Member
Did the GameCube make a profit, and a return on investment - on its own would it have covered costs associated with Nintendo's operation? Or was it the beneficiary of its handheld brethren at the time.
I really wouldn't expect much more investment from Sony into PSV software. There's a more lucrative PS4 to support.
And at a certain point retailers aren't going to want to stock a product that sells a unit a month.
Also while it's splitting hairs: The PSV had sold-through 3.6M as at the end of 2012 - according to NPD, Media Create and Gfk-ChartTrack/Nintendo.
I really wouldn't expect much more investment from Sony into PSV software. There's a more lucrative PS4 to support.
And at a certain point retailers aren't going to want to stock a product that sells a unit a month.
Also while it's splitting hairs: The PSV had sold-through 3.6M as at the end of 2012 - according to NPD, Media Create and Gfk-ChartTrack/Nintendo.
Demon Souls needs no lessons from Monster Hunter, its own formula is much better.
metalslimer
Member
We'll certainly find out in the coming months, but the fact is that Sony hasn't announced a major 1st party game since September of last year which suggests they themselves are waiting to see how things go with their push in Japan. What it seems like Sony will attempt to do is make Vita as an accessory to the PS4 for streaming while developing games primarily for PS4. This is something I do wonder though. What incentive does Sony have to invest in Vita exclusive high quality games? If Sony is truly going for a very low profit model with the whole Vita ecosystem and are perfectly happy with the thing selling 30k a month in the US than why would they invest millions of dollars into games that could go to the PS4 which has the potential from what we've seen to be huge.
Sony is not a charity. They are a huge conglomerate organization and how could they possibly get around this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
This is the reason 3rd parties don't put money into making Wii U ports of 3rd party games despite the fact that it could be slightly profitable. The manpower it takes could be sent elsewhere to make much more profit. Now if the dedicated handheld market was healthy it would be one thing, but it is quickly dying in the west. And it's only going to get worse this year as tablets take an even stronger foothold on the cheaper side. We will see much more powerful tablets than the 3DS sold for cheaper.
Highly unlikely. The Vita is a full blown sales disaster. It´s pretty much impossible to not lose money on this.
They're selling almost at cost in the west and gaining a lot of money from memory card sales.
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
wrong(about sony loosing money that is)
PuppetMaster
Member
They are not losing money on it.
Your sense of what a disaster is does not match with reality.
They need to sell something first to make any money at all, and that´s not really happening.
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
Explain
Well it's still a disaster no matter how much you try to say anything else. Sure it's making money for Sony but right now if sales keep on like this it won't even reach 20 million LTD in 4 years, that's even worse than GC and Xbox did
The Vita sales are completely abysmal. So are memory cards, games and everything else involved.
Everything costs money, the production, the development, the marketing, the online, the storage etc. You need to sell a minimum number of units to get these fixed costs back. Highly unlikely that this is happening.
Fundamentally, I don't think there's any reason for the Vita to really exist. The entire reason for the parity between the PSP and the DS was that there were experiences that the PSP could provide that the DS couldn't, and that was a satisfying 3D experience. The rise of Monster Hunter only cemented the PSP as a competent competitor to the DS, and Monster Hunter provided the sales that allowed other third parties to sell on the PSP.
Now the 3DS can do everything the PSP can do, so what's left for the Vita? Has it found its identity as an indie console? As an otaku console? I'd say that it could, but what kind of market is there for that? Sony has never put out a console without major backing of third parties. And all those first party titles you mention? It's like me saying the Wii U will be saved by Kirby or Star Fox. Hell, some of those titles are on par with Endless Ocean. They're good supporting titles, not something you bank your system on, as I've repeatedly mentioned. Retailers care about retail space; where do you think the Vita is going to go when the PS4 and Durango launch this year? The market that the Vita is "going for", as you say, isn't satisfying to retailers.
Indies are more significant than ever. But why, as a major company, would you decide to bank on indies as your main selling point? You can't deny that the Vita has greatly undersold Sony's expectations. They were so embarassed by the console that they had to hide the Vita with the PSP in their sales reports and yet still had to keep cutting expectations. This wasn't their plan; their plan was to be another PSP, and it didn't work due to their own incompetence. Those major indie titles that you say would make an impact aren't coming. Japan, the greatest market for handhelds, is generally adverse to digital distribution, so it's not going to make much of an impact. They are cutting their losses in the West (why lose more money on something you don't have software for?). It's a failure of a console.
Could it sell 20 million? Yes. If Sony keeps on doing what they're doing, and keeps putting out games that can be found on other consoles, along a few niche titles, it won't get close.
Now the 3DS can do everything the PSP can do, so what's left for the Vita? Has it found its identity as an indie console? As an otaku console? I'd say that it could, but what kind of market is there for that? Sony has never put out a console without major backing of third parties. And all those first party titles you mention? It's like me saying the Wii U will be saved by Kirby or Star Fox. Hell, some of those titles are on par with Endless Ocean. They're good supporting titles, not something you bank your system on, as I've repeatedly mentioned. Retailers care about retail space; where do you think the Vita is going to go when the PS4 and Durango launch this year? The market that the Vita is "going for", as you say, isn't satisfying to retailers.
Indies are more significant than ever. But why, as a major company, would you decide to bank on indies as your main selling point? You can't deny that the Vita has greatly undersold Sony's expectations. They were so embarassed by the console that they had to hide the Vita with the PSP in their sales reports and yet still had to keep cutting expectations. This wasn't their plan; their plan was to be another PSP, and it didn't work due to their own incompetence. Those major indie titles that you say would make an impact aren't coming. Japan, the greatest market for handhelds, is generally adverse to digital distribution, so it's not going to make much of an impact. They are cutting their losses in the West (why lose more money on something you don't have software for?). It's a failure of a console.
Could it sell 20 million? Yes. If Sony keeps on doing what they're doing, and keeps putting out games that can be found on other consoles, along a few niche titles, it won't get close.
michaelius
Banned
So when will Nintendo discontinue Wii U ?
There's really no reason for it to exist as you can find all experiences from it on Xbox360 and PS3.
I still don't feel the 3DS can provide a satisfactory 3D experience given the standards I expect from a device in 2013. Particularly with it only having one analogue stick. I'm undeniably in a minority with that view though, as the numbers show.
If the Vita had a decent level of third party support, I think you'd see a number of games that couldn't be done on any other handheld platform. It's impossible to demonstrate what doesn't exist, sadly.
clay_ghost
Member
Great , let hope it keep up the sales.
If you read the actual story linked in the OP, you would see that the name in the thread reflects the name of the original story.
Not something the OP made up for the sake of GAF.
metalslimer
Member
Vita has/had massive potential as a system, but it was just released in the completely wrong era. Vita is a much better designed system than the 3DS and the lack of region locking makes it sad what happened to the platform, but it is what it is.My only hope now is that iOS doesn't do to the console market what it did to the handheld market.
Edit: Do we have any idea if Sony is making any money after the pricecut in japan? Sony did state it would take 2 years to recover the money they had invested in Vita and that looks like it will never happen since their expectation for sales is likely more than they will ever achieve.
Edit: Do we have any idea if Sony is making any money after the pricecut in japan? Sony did state it would take 2 years to recover the money they had invested in Vita and that looks like it will never happen since their expectation for sales is likely more than they will ever achieve.
The Vita certainly has potential to do more. The rear touchpad is an interesting concept. But, as you said, I think the mass market is satisfied with PS2-esque graphics. Plus, the difference between having a d-pad vs an analog stick is much greater than the difference between one analog vs two analogs.
The Vita is pretty much the system Nintendo will release next generation, albeit with improved power and Nintendo's own quirkyness.
Do you have anything more concrete than "highly unlikely", especially regarding game sales? Because we have evidence from quite a few sources that are stating otherwise.
The makers of the GC clearly didn't think it was a success or we wouldn't have had a Wii to begin with.
Heck they were the joke in town and didn't even think they could save that at some point.
Even worse Iwata defined the failure of the Wii in this terms :
"If does do better than GC it'll be a failure".
I don't think anyone think at Nintendo think of the GC as a successful endeavour, heck the philosophy behind the GC would have put them out of the console market, this is why they changed it.
What? No. Nintendo never followed the loss leading model of Sony.
Why the hell do you think they always go affordable hardware first to begin with?
Sony tried the very same model that proved a failure for the PSP and got what they deserved.
At least games were selling decently on the GC, that's not even happening on Vita!
No, i´m just putting one and one together. What evidence exactly do you have regarding the game sales?
electroplankton
Banned
You can buy the second analog whenever you want, though.
he wants a handheld Console.. not a console placed in an ugly plastic container..
Please post your sources. Afaik it normally takes years of decent sales to cover the costs AOC83 listed.
The CEO of Ubisoft saying that Assassin's Creed did pretty ok, for starters. I believe Atlus were also pleased by the sales. In addition, there's also been a recent (but small, in the grand scheme of things)movement of indie devs making plans to put some of their games on Vita.
I asked the question with a slant towards game sales; I apologise if I my phrasing or wording was misleading.
Not sure if serious.gif
If i use your logic than there is no reason for 3DS to exist since PSP can do anything the 3DS does.
michaelius
Banned
Can i also buy screen with better resolution and additional GPU so that those games won't look like slightly better 3D version of what i played for last 3 years on PSP ?
So...there are two games coming out, some more games that may or may not be coming out, and the possibility of Sony moneyhatting some indie titles that have the potential to blow up.
You could write the exact same thing about the Wii U, the Jaguar, the 3DO or basically any other system ever.
Yes, Sony could pay GungHo for Puzzle and Dragons and it could blow up huge. Then again, Nintendo could get Puzzle and Dragons on Wii U or 3DS. Or nobody could get it. Or everybody could get it.
The fact that in the future it's possible something good might happen is not much of an argument. What we know is that the release schedule looks thin, that even Sony first and second party devs don't seem to have much interest in developing for it, that it's been out for over a year, had a number of waves of software and multiple holiday seasons while still selling poorly, etc.
Whether or not it's "doomed" I don't know or care because the term in meaningless, but it's not doing well and it doesn't look like it's going to start doing well any time soon.
Wasn't the conversation originally about how the Vita hardware being profitable overall? Not individual games, right?
DR2K
Banned
There's no reason for competition to exist it makes buying hard.
Takamura-San
Member
I wonder why consoles exist at all sometimes too. I can do everything better on my PC.
I wonder why android exists too, everything on the iPhone is ok as is.
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