It will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the PlayStation platform for the past decade or so.
Sony has often said their pieces of hardware have 10-year life spans; they said it for the PS2, they said it for the PS3 and now, they've said it again for their new portable device, the PlayStation Vita.
Sony boss John Koller confirmed as much in a recent IGN interview , repeating a familiar refrain:
"We’re in year one, so we’ll be supporting it for some time. But yeah, it does have its own 10-year life cycle. All of our platforms do … it’s a marathon, not a sprint. We expect long-term success from all our platforms."
The Vita has had a lackluster start although Sony says the overall sales figures aren't too disappointing. The company does, however, admit that third-party support for the handheld has been lower than anticipated and on top of which, with the explosion of mobile gaming, ten years might be a stretch this time.
It certainly wasn't a stretch for the PS2 and doesn't appear to be one for the PS3. The PS2 absolutely had a solid 10 years; in fact, that sounds exactly right (2000 – 2010), and the PS3, which launched in 2006, will soon enter its seventh year. There are several new exclusives coming that should continue to push the envelope, the newly remodeled consoles are here, and it's destined to sell well in the few years after the PS4 comes out. The Vita may be facing a very different – and tougher – road.
To me, that sounds like a fair and objective analysis. But Destructoid 's Jim Sterling reminds us all once again why the downright adolescent and just plain inaccurate Sony bashing is still going strong. But, then again, when you give Heavy Rain a 4, you've given us all the clues we need.
Of course, you have to leave it to Destructoid to come up with a really mature editorial. *sarcasm* I should have followed my instincts and NOT clicked on that link. That's a minute of my life I will never get back.
You have to click the link tentatively, through half-closed eyes, like you're approaching the scene of some horrific accident.
i think whats worse than Jim Sterling blatantly bashing Sony just cause he can, are the people who actually read all that non-sense and fully agreed with it…after reading the comments i feel like my IQ was cut in half
Jim Sterling is a hack and Sony hate monger. He is good at nothing but writing worthless crap to get hits.
I believe every Sony system has hit the 10 year mark and the PSP is next in line. PSP came out in 2004 I believe and it's going really strong still outselling the Vita in Japan. Vita will make it to the 10 year mark as well. I love that it is truly a marathon and not a sprint. There is a lot of untapped potential in the Vita and it's exciting to see what advances are made in coding/developing for Vita to get to it's full potential. Borderlands 2 on Vita will be a truly awesome announcement!!
Edit – Wow, just read through Destructoids user comments about the above article is appalling how much anti-Sony replies exist. People just spout crap that doesn't make sense and is down right false just to make Sony look horrible. Sony haters are seriously disturbed!
Last edited by CrusaderForever on 10/1/2012 12:41:09 PM
Sterling is a hunchbacked blight on gaming society.
I hope Vita does have plenty of support, I'd like to see it retain the JRPG market that PSP had.
Love that quote. LOL
hah, I was going for a little Richard the 3rd from Shakespeare.
I consider Jim Sterling as the Glenn Beck of video games.
I'm very sorry to report that jim sterling has come down with a terminal case of cranial hemorrhoids from repeatedly plunging his over-sized head into his a$$ for more than just one 10 year life span.
Oh wait, I'm not sorry!
Last edited by BikerSaint on 10/1/2012 1:22:14 PM
My thoughts on Jim Sterling are best left unsaid, though I will say this much, he's a talentless, biased, immature hack.
That aside, PSP has had a great run, and continues in life. Vita will ultimately have a great run too, even after a slow start out the gate. I think the mistake Sony has made here is similar to the mistake that SE and others have made. They forgot that their home market is still extremely important and focused on the US market. Se changed their focus completely and their products suffered for it. Sony has bent it's software strategy for Vita to the Western consumer, the trouble is that there are more early adopters of gadgets in Japan than the rest of the world combined. By focusing westward with software titles and not pushng games like Monster Hunter onto Vita, Sony has really created the problem themselves. Not enough content in Japan to drive sales and in the West, people are unwilling to put any money on a hand held device that does not say apple or Nintendo unless it has a compelling title. That title would have been something like Call of Duty, but it's not ready yet. So the western sales of Vita are slow as well. Now you get lots of stories calling it a failure (just like PSP – which was not a failure of course).
Sony needs to do 3 things.
1) advertize the Vita widely (and PS3 too for that matter)
2) get some really compelling titles on vita in Japan ASAP to help drive sales.
3) get the remaining 3rd party devs to complete their titles and shout about them for Vita, make sure there is no software drought.
If the thing starts to sell better in Japan, that will result in positive stories, third party games like Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty on Vita will help in the west, but more than that advertizing will help.
One final thing (I guess I should have said 4 things), Sony needs to introduce a price cut. They may not wish to, but they need to. Even if they simply start bundling an 16GB memory card in the box, they need to put a $50 price drop in place. If the Wifi and 3G models both came with 16GB as standard, that would be an effective $50 price cut – which would really help the perception of the value and the unit itself.
I like Glenn Beck!! Please .. Don't even go there!
PS2 games are actually still being released, with the latest game being Fifa 13.
Honestly quite surprised that this little console is still kicking around. Heck, the next generation is about to kick into gear, yet the PS2, nearly two generations ago, is still getting fresh content.
I truly hope the Vita is still going strong 12 or so years from now. I wonder if Fifa 25 will be released on the Vita? 🙂
Last edited by wiiplay on 10/3/2012 10:31:16 PM
I don't know what Sony is thinking. In the hardware world, 5 years is an eternity and you can easily buy low end cheap hardware that has at least twice the performance of 5 year old high end hardware.
The fact that they're planning to ship so many units at launch tells me that they're not going to go $600 again on us again. If they do, I'm sure they'll have a cheap $400 (or less??!)option and have that as the majority of the 16 million launch units.
I mean if you think about it Nintendo is already having a hard time selling at their price, and there isn't competition of next gen consoles yet. K, maybe Nintendo is just different, but my point stands that if Sony wants success early on and sell many of those 16 million, they're going have to take in consideration on the Xbox's prices and I assume they won't go $600 on people.
Anything beyond $400 and I think Sony shoots itself in the foot !