I've said before that I think that Sony's most workable option (assuming that they're not willing to pursue a strategy which involves putting themselves far deeper into the red than they already are) is to position Vita as luxury device while continuing focus on PSP, waiting until component prices go down enough to give Vita a price drop that brings it into mass appeal territory (maybe ~$200?).
But here's a thought experiment maybe: What about making a much smaller Vita, something the size of the 3DS. Ignoring the cost of R&D and startup fees (like making the test moldings for an entirely new case and so forth):
- can the hardware be shrunk like this without heat issues coming up?
- will there be a decent cost savings going from a 5-inch, OLED screen to a 3.5" conventional LED/LCD screen?
- how about going from the current 2200mAh battery to a 1300mAh battery, not unlike the one on the 3DS
- and what would be the cost savings in having less general material (it'd probably use less than 50% of the plastic)
- are there any superfluous ports or items that could be removed (I mean, it doesn't *need* a second speaker, especially when you could get stereo with headphones if you're an audiophile)
So the obvious problems of the above include the already terrible battery life turning into a big pile of crap and the smaller screen possibly being an issue if developers are specifically targeting making their sprites'n'such optimally visible on a 5" screen.
I don't think this action will decrease prices nearly enough, but I don't know what the costs are on the components that would be shrunk or done away with, so I might be mistaken. Maybe there are redesign strategies that I'm not even slightly thinking of that could reach this goal. I do think that this might be interesting to ruminate on.
