Gamasutra: PlayStation Vita's biggest challenge: Convincing developers
- Thread starter Vic
- Start date
He asked why people "hated" the system. As a piece of kit, the Vita is an excellent device. The problems with sales are entirely different animal and a picking point.
metalslimer
Member
semiconscious
Member
vita's become the embodiment of 'catch 22': no development till it has the sales, no sales till it has the development...
shame. cuz it's fuckin' badass
...
shame. cuz it's fuckin' badass
...Impeccable
Member
On the topic it's true they have to convince developers to go beyond ports in the long term.
On the replies: "It has no games" becomes "It has no games that sell systems." becomes "It has no games" and repeats. People always have an 'out' when discussing what is and isn't a "system seller" and nothing is ever good enough for the Vita it seems.
On the replies: "It has no games" becomes "It has no games that sell systems." becomes "It has no games" and repeats. People always have an 'out' when discussing what is and isn't a "system seller" and nothing is ever good enough for the Vita it seems.
metalslimer
Member
Ok what system sellers do you think Vita has and why? The reason why nothing is ever enough is because the market has fundamentally changed to the point where once something like Assassin's Creed Liberation might have been enough, it will likely not gain much traction at all.
chickdigger802
Banned
So what does vita have to keep psp owners from picking up a 3ds for monhun 4 tomorrow?
Having monhun like games doesn't seem to be doing it ( and those games are also coming to psp for the most part).
They really need the 'next thing'. Pokemon monhunter.
Need another pillar for local mp.
Having monhun like games doesn't seem to be doing it ( and those games are also coming to psp for the most part).
They really need the 'next thing'. Pokemon monhunter.
Need another pillar for local mp.
PS3 was a mistake that likely will go down as the biggest disaster in Sony's history. It was a mistake that ultimately became presentable but that doesn't change what it was.
Mario?
The term system seller is overused. I'd rather have a variety of solid offerings than a single "system seller". Most were sold on the system before a single game was announced.
Father_Brain
Banned
As an acknowledged Vita skeptic since before the system's existence was even officially announced, I think that most of us in my camp have only ever been critical of the system's software library in terms of its ability to move hardware (or rather, lack thereof). 3DS' library interests me more personally, sure, but I think that preferring Vita's library is a perfectly legitimate opinion. But neither of those opinions have anything to do with the health of the platform itself.
And also, what metalslimer said. Has there been a young-adult-male-targeted handheld title that's actually sold well since Chains of Olympus four and a half years ago? That demographic is simply not coming back to dedicated handhelds, regardless of what quality or quantity of software aimed at them comes out for Vita.
Yes. It had all sorts of dingleberries .. Price point, hardware design, adoption of Blu Ray, etc ... No doubt.
My point is that calling for its cancellation is premature.
That to me was all the confirmation I needed that sony either dont give a damn or have no idea on what to do next. I cant purchase the vita when I dont believe that sony will even support it let alone 3rd party support.
The Vita is lucky to do 10k a week in Japan yet at the TGS sony did nothing to suggest they can turn it around.
metalslimer
Member
Mario is a Vita system seller? Mario is the only reason the 3DS is even a thing in the west right now. Sony doesn't have a Mario safety net which is why (imo) they misjudged the market to even release Vita. In Japan, Sony is completely reliant on 3rd parties as their first party sales in japan are abysmal, and once they lost 3rd parties in Japan by launching a year late it was over there.
Who here is hating on Vita? Specially on its hardware? Stating the the system is doing so bad that it can be argued that is already a failure is not hating. Perhaps just being a tad pessimistic.
Vita has no games that can push hardware on a significant way. Other factors, such as (your perceived) quality have little relevance on a sales thread.
Vita has no games that can push hardware on a significant way. Other factors, such as (your perceived) quality have little relevance on a sales thread.
Little Green Yoda
Member
Do you understand why the PS3 has managed to hang on despite those flaws instead of dying a horrible, horrible death? And how those factors don't appear to be in play wrt the Vita?
Of course not. Just playing around.
My point is that Mario can be substituted with 3 or 4 solid titles. There is no direct placement for Mario but Sony can do other things ...
metalslimer
Member
Also if Sony had to lose 4.5 billion dollars to revive Vita (probably the amount it would actually take to secure the exclusives needed to save the system) they might as well drop it now as Sony can't just drop that amount of cash when they have one of the companies biggest initatives that actually has a decent chance to do well (PS4)
It really can't. Mario sells 15 million+ for it's 2d entries/karts/etc. It's not just one Mario title we're talking here and it's multiple. First of all to match that with 3 titles you need 3 huge titles not solid titles. Then to match the combined Mario titles coming out you need a crap ton of huge games which if Vita had it wouldn't be in this situation in the first place
Please enlighten me.
chickdigger802
Banned
Actually. I'm not sure if it's limitation of the system or lazy devs or if the screen is too good, but playing non native res games makes me unreasonably pissed off.
This is what we call false equivalence everyone! 3DS is looking like it will fail to match the heights of its predecessor but will still be a successful, profitable system.
Vita is currently selling about 120K a month worldwide and is falling behind the Dreamcast in some territories.
But yup, its only butt hurt Nintendo fans following the cool kids.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
In the US, 3D Land hasn't just outsold the top 4 Vita games combined, it's outsold the top 20. And this is a region where 3DS is supposedly struggling.
metalslimer
Member
PS3 had multiplats with the 360- No big developer wants to make anything for Vita even multiplats. Kojima talked about Fox Engine on Vita last year and has since basically dropped the system.
PS3 had Sony's full first party backing- Naughty Dog won't even touch Vita
PS3 had it's main competitors with their own big problems- 360 brand in Japan, Wii lack of power, the 3DS is completely dominant in the one territory Vita could do well in and western developers have moved to iOS
Sony quickly dropped the price of PS3 as hard as they could even losing a massive amount of money to make it work. Sony seems to have no interest on losing money on Vita and won't cut the price until the component costs come down
PS3 had many games that were announced for it pre launch including exclusives (MGS4, FF13, Versus 13, DMC4) The best square can do on Vita is a FFXHD port which we haven't seen and don't even know if it's still coming to Vita
Basically Vita has nothing that the PS3 had that allowed it to make a turnaround.
Alias Greed
Neo Member
They still had third party support, All high profile third party games for the most part are multi-platform (xbox 360 / PS3). As a video game community we assumed just because it was exclusive on ps2 it was going to be exclusive on ps3 which was not the case. Sony never said they were exclusives we did as a community. I'm imagining they money-hatted konami to keep mgs4 exclusive.
As for vita I think it's a great platform but it won't sell much. Will still have great gems.
Shocker. Mario sells. It's no Angry Birds but its up there
Point being, it needs a barage of quality titles. For every Mario, it'll need Drake and 10 of his best buds available. I get it. Give this system some time to get its ducks in a row.
twentytwo22
Member
Same people, same opinions, new Vita thread.
I still play the hell out of mine, and just picked up three games that came out on Thursday that are all of a seriously stellar quality. Having said that, I fully recognize that Sony has made some serious mistakes, and SCEA's treatment of the Vita is pathetic. I love perpetuated idea on NeoGAF that if a system/game doesn't sell, suddenly you can't enjoy it.
We'll see where it goes from here. I don't think you can say that the Vita is "dead", at least not in Japan.
And I always love those responses like "shut it down, it's over!" as if Sony is still hemmoraging money on it.
I still play the hell out of mine, and just picked up three games that came out on Thursday that are all of a seriously stellar quality. Having said that, I fully recognize that Sony has made some serious mistakes, and SCEA's treatment of the Vita is pathetic. I love perpetuated idea on NeoGAF that if a system/game doesn't sell, suddenly you can't enjoy it.
We'll see where it goes from here. I don't think you can say that the Vita is "dead", at least not in Japan.
And I always love those responses like "shut it down, it's over!" as if Sony is still hemmoraging money on it.
Source?
metalslimer
Member
Opportunity cost is a thing.
Game consoles don't just magically reinvigorate themselves. A substantial shift of 3rd parties from 3DS/PS3/WiiU would have to go to Vita to make it viable in Japan. And which 3rd party is actually going to make games for the system that is selling worse than the Dreamcast?
Little Green Yoda
Member
1) Vita did not appear to have the same pre-launch support from developers as the PS3 did. Opiate touched upon this earlier in this thread. A lot of it has to do with the strength of Sony's brand in 2005 vs that in 2011. Coming off the PSP and PS3 instead of the PS2 has damaged Sony's reputation as an automatic winner so that third party support is no longer automatic either.
2) The PS3 lucked out in a sense because HD development is expensive. Publishers have a hard time justifying big-budget games exclusive to one platform. The success of the 360 (and the problems with the PS3) meant a lot of those games were developed on the 360 as the lead platform. In past generations, the PS3 might have been left out in the cold a la the Gamecube but the publishers had to recoup some of the HD development costs via ports to the PS3.
3) The first party IPs Sony developed helped buoy the PS3 catalog. Not really the same thing when Sony's top rate developers are refusing to work on the handheld. Western third party developers also have a knack of either ignoring or doing half-assed work on dedicated handheld games. PS3 did not have this issue.
4) Sony spent a lot of money rebranding the PS3 after the poor launch. Today, Sony has less financial flexibility and the Vita is less important now than PS3 was back in 2006, 2007. If Vita fails, Sony can probably drop out of the handheld business and shift to PS Mobile. If PS3 failed (as in died a premature death), I don't know if a PS4 would ever exist. So they have less money to burn on Vita than they did on the PS3 and the PS3 was a heckuva lot more important than the Vita is today.
edit: beaten badly by metalslimer
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Shocker. Mario sells. It's no Angry Birds but its up there
Point being, it needs a barage of quality titles. For every Mario, it'll need Drake and 10 of his best buds available. I get it. Give this system some time to get its ducks in a row.
Time is precisely what the Vita does not have, unfortunately. Without something to prove to developers that the Vita is still going to exist in a year or two, they won't put any effort into any Vita games. The most it can hope for is PSP/Vita releases like God Eater 2.
twentytwo22
Member
Tecmo Koei, Marvelous, Sega, Falcom, Gung Ho...
And as far as opportunity cost goes, they should just shut it down now that they have spent all the money, and move past any potential chance at making money back just to sink more money into development of... what? More PS3 stuff? It's not like PS4 development isn't ongoing.
Don't sell the Vita so short, Takao.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
To be fair, he has a point. A major reason for the Vita's failure to have full support pre-lauch is because of how much stock Sony lost with 3rd parties with the PS3's failed launch.
Erm... not to rain on the parade, but only Sega would have any chance and they're doing so poorly financially right now I wouldn't count on them saving the Vita.
metalslimer
Member
No matter how bad Vita is doing. They are profiting on the memory cards, and the system is at worst being sold at break even. PS3 destroyed Sony's dominance in gaming, lost them massive first party support, and strained the entire company. Vita's failure in comparison is just a blip.
That has nothing to do with it. Nintendo's complete dominance in japan with the DS told 3rd parties exactly where to bet this handheld gen and western 3rd parties never cared about handhelds anyway.
Yeah, no. Vita's the safest piece of hardware SCE has ever designed. It's pretty much entirely off the shelf parts which meant a rather cheap R&D cost. PS3 cost the company billions in R&D, losses due to the razor's edge model, and a priceless amount of marketshare. Vita's not even at a fraction of that. It could sell 0 units from now until 2020 and still be less of a flop.
Sony must be losing money on the vita?
Punchpudding
Member
A while ago someone from Sony said the majority of Vita customers were already PS3 customers. Looking at that list of games that seems to line up. First party can inspire a loyal following but its a tough sell to the rest of the market. I think Sony underestimated what they had to do to win over developers.
twentytwo22
Member
Whoa whoa, where did I mention saving the Vita? This whole "saving" concept is fucking insane. NOBODY is going to come along and suddenly become the Vita's white knight. It isn't happening.
It doesn't mean that developers can't make games for the system that sell to expectations. (Again, speaking for a Japanese standpoint)
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Ah sorry, misread the question. My bad.
frankie_baby
Member
Personally I'd guess small loss on wifi, small profit on 3g, I think many people have misinterpreted comments from Sony that they expected the vita "business" to be profitable quickly as to mean the hardware was profitable
Regardless of whether or not they're actually losing money on the Vita business, they are definitely losing in terms of opportunity cost. The resources they're pouring into Vita would be far better spent on PS4. If they continue to keep the Vita on life support, they'll end up dooming their chances for success with PS4.
metalslimer
Member
Actually you have it backward. Sony said it would take years to make the Vita business profitable (meaning R&D, marketing, game development), but the hardware was profitable on Day 1. Looking at things now though, I doubt Sony ever breaks even especially if people's suggestions to keep Vita alive is to keep it selling like 40k a week WW.
Everything I've read indicates Sony are losing money on the hardware.
Father_Brain
Banned
No one at all that I've seen is saying this, and GAF has championed plenty of games/systems that sold poorly (Dreamcast, Psychonauts, Vanquish, Okami, etc.).
Discussing Vita's sales and the reality thereof is in no way an attack on your or anyone's enjoyment of the system and its software.
Glorified G
Member
It's pretty easy to tell by just looking at the people who have the most posts in the thread.
metalslimer
Member
http://www.gamesthirst.com/2011/06/08/ps-vita-will-be-profitable-on-day-one/
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If you're talking about me, yeah I like discussing the sales of all systems and find it pretty interesting. I think Nintendo has no real strategy with the 3DS in the west and as I've said before are surviving thanks to Mario. Personally, I would prefer Vita and 3DS both do well so developers would have less of an incentive to go towards the iOS route (though im open to iOS gaming as well). Being realistic and looking at every past data point to reference there is almost no chance Vita recovers.
Get me some goddamn RPGs please 
FFVII-IX keep me busy for now, but get some originals already. Vita game situation right now is absolute ASS, only game I enjoy is MGSHD (which well is a port) and some Everybody's Golf, PSN is better but I want some real retail support
FFVII-IX keep me busy for now, but get some originals already. Vita game situation right now is absolute ASS, only game I enjoy is MGSHD (which well is a port) and some Everybody's Golf, PSN is better but I want some real retail support