Ben-DutkaAs if Sony needed to tell you, the prospect of another PlayStation Vita model is…well, unlikely.
PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida spoke at Europe's EGX gaming event, and he hinted that a Vita successor might not happen. He called the current climate "unhealthy" and again cited the rise of the mobile market as impacting Vita's sales and potential. As reported by Eurogamer :
"People have mobile phones and it's so easy to play games on smartphones. And many games on smartphones are free, or free to start. I myself am a huge fan of PlayStation Vita and we worked really hard on designing every aspect. Touch-based games are fun–there are many games with really good design. But having sticks and buttons make things totally different."
Yoshida added that he hopes the culture of portable games can continue to survive, but the "huge dominance" of mobile gaming makes it tough. On the plus side, when asked about the possibility of another Wipeout (franchise studio Sony Liverpool has closed), Yoshida said "never say never." They definitely should try to make that happen.
As for the Vita, it's only a matter of time. Developer support remains low, Sony hasn't been interested in AAA games for the system for some time, there are only a few Japanese-centric exclusives on the horizon, and most games on Vita are available on PS4/PS3. It's just not working out the way Sony had hoped but indeed, there are culture and market reasons.
Thanks Yoshida. Thanks for making me want to just sell my Vita and buy the rest of my mobile games for a iOS or Droid or something. What a dumb thing to say right now.
EDIT: wait. There's the Nintendo handhelds. I'll be sure to be ready to buy nintendo's next offering.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/26/2015 12:15:28 PM
On the bright side, there were 62 games shown for the Vita at TGS this year, which is almost double that of last year. Sure, many of those games are also coming out for PS4, but having those things on the go is kinda the point of a mobile system like the Vita.
To say it's the exclusives is missing the point completely.
Now, all we need is a hardware revision that gives us L2 and R2 buttons and I'd be set!
A new handheld isn't necessary anymore especially with PSNow. Looking into the future new consoles wouldn't be necessary if cloud gaming/PSNow really takes off. They just need a better model with the service. Rentals are nice but give me the option to buy, Sony.
Its hard to break into something thats owned by Nintendo and hipsters.
Sony didn't manage the Vita, or the psp for that matter, very well. Price was always too high for the unit + Memory, seemingly didn't try to bring good games over to the Vita, and for them to simply blame the mobile gaming scene is a joke.
I have no doubt that the mobile market is taking a bite out of the handhelds market, but Nintendo is doing just fine with theirs. So what does the big N do different? they price the products very well, and they've got the games to back it, as well as monster franchises to help support it.
I guess you really can't compete unless you have Pokemon.
I don't see Nintendo's handhelds struggling, on the contrary. It's what is keeping Nintendo afloat today, so they must be making a killing with their handheld business.
In my opinion Sony mismanaged the Vita. The concept is great. The device has physical controls! Try playing Sonic on your cellphone, just no.
I was interested in getting a Vita (Great JRPGS in the PS1 and PSP libraries plus new vita games) but the lack of a user replaceable baterry (like the one found in the PSP)and those ripoff prices for their propietary memory cards (what's wrong with common SD card storage?) were a no sale for me.
Then Sony just let it die by droping its support. No wonder third parties left too. It seems like Sony just wanted a new device, stamp a playstation brand to it and expect it to sell itself. With this precedent I wouldn't be surprised if the PS VR suffers the same fate.
On top of that
Well f-you very much.
No wonder it's strugling because Sony dropped support of AAA titles. And comparing it to smartphone gaming? Pleeeaase… I just hate touch controls and will never play games on smartphone.
I wonder why Nintendo is doing well… time to sell Vita and buy Nintendo I suppose. Please Sony, dont do another handheld. Thank you.
Sony as a whole is struggling so much these days they're choosing to flee instead of fight on this front.
Sadly, I feel whenever the future gen comes where Sony slips up again as they did with PS3, they may handle the problem similarly as they had the Vita.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/26/2015 7:05:37 PM
Temjin, they already did that with the PS4. Remember all the features the PS3 had at launch? PS4 doesn't have more than 2 usb ports, and there's only the proprietary one on the back for the PS4 camera. The list goes on, and on.
It's a vicious circle. No games=no vita sales, no vita sales=no games. But Yoshida is right, there's almost no reason to carry around yet another device, specially since mobiles are getting huger and faster by the minute. I mean they're 64bit for Christ's sake. There are some with controller add ons being made for them. People are more prone to change their mobiles every 2 years, that's at least two generations in the mobile space. How many new Vitas have we had that had significantly better specs? More ram? Higher clock speed? More cpu cores? Beter gpu? What we've been getting out of Sony with every new iteration of their devices is less features. Remember when they took away the ability to watch movies in hd over component?
It's a shame. The PS Vita is such a great system but SONY (not mobile phones), SONY ruined it!
Sure, you can say, "Mobile phones killed the Vita" and you're not wrong but Sony has done nothing BUT try and ruin the Vita from the start.
– Released it overpriced at $250 (they should have dropped the price after seeing the 3DS flop at that price)
– Require expensive proprietary memory cards for the system ($60 for a 16GB memory card?!?!)
– Killed first-party support after the first year of release (Sony confirmed all first-party developers have moved from the Vita to PS4)
– Constantly ignored the Vita at E3 (nowhere at E32012, two minutes of screentime at E32013, and nowhere at E32014 nor E32015).
– Continues to remove Vita titles away from the system and bring them to PS3/PS4 (e.g. Hot Shots Golf, Escape Plan, Tearaway, Gravity Rush, etc.)
What the hell did you expect, Sony?! You can't just throw this device out into the market without supporting it and expect everything will work. The 3DS worked because Nintendo pumped it full of first-party titles and slashed the price fairly quick to prevent its death. You just said, "Meh. Let's focus on PS4 now."
Again, it's a shame because the Vita is a great system that was never given a chance.
Sony's problem with handhelds has been that they try to replicate a console experience and little else, which means most of the best games for their handheld systems are the poor man's version of games you'd rather play on PS3/4.
My son and I have had a Vita for a little over a month now, and we have about 15 games already. With the exception of Golden Abyss, not a single one is an original PS Vita game, and the parts of Golden Abyss that set it apart from a console Uncharted are the absolute worst aspects of the game.
Thanks Yoshida. Thanks for making me want to just sell my Vita and buy the rest of my mobile games for a iOS or Droid or something. What a dumb thing to say right now.
EDIT: wait. There's the Nintendo handhelds. I'll be sure to be ready to buy nintendo's next offering.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/26/2015 12:15:28 PM
It's a shame. The PS Vita is such a great system but SONY (not mobile phones), SONY ruined it!
Sure, you can say, "Mobile phones killed the Vita" and you're not wrong but Sony has done nothing BUT try and ruin the Vita from the start.
– Released it overpriced at $250 (they should have dropped the price after seeing the 3DS flop at that price)
– Require expensive proprietary memory cards for the system ($60 for a 16GB memory card?!?!)
– Killed first-party support after the first year of release (Sony confirmed all first-party developers have moved from the Vita to PS4)
– Constantly ignored the Vita at E3 (nowhere at E32012, two minutes of screentime at E32013, and nowhere at E32014 nor E32015).
– Continues to remove Vita titles away from the system and bring them to PS3/PS4 (e.g. Hot Shots Golf, Escape Plan, Tearaway, Gravity Rush, etc.)
What the hell did you expect, Sony?! You can't just throw this device out into the market without supporting it and expect everything will work. The 3DS worked because Nintendo pumped it full of first-party titles and slashed the price fairly quick to prevent its death. You just said, "Meh. Let's focus on PS4 now."
Again, it's a shame because the Vita is a great system that was never given a chance.
Sony's problem with handhelds has been that they try to replicate a console experience and little else, which means most of the best games for their handheld systems are the poor man's version of games you'd rather play on PS3/4.
My son and I have had a Vita for a little over a month now, and we have about 15 games already. With the exception of Golden Abyss, not a single one is an original PS Vita game, and the parts of Golden Abyss that set it apart from a console Uncharted are the absolute worst aspects of the game.
I don't see Nintendo's handhelds struggling, on the contrary. It's what is keeping Nintendo afloat today, so they must be making a killing with their handheld business.
In my opinion Sony mismanaged the Vita. The concept is great. The device has physical controls! Try playing Sonic on your cellphone, just no.
I was interested in getting a Vita (Great JRPGS in the PS1 and PSP libraries plus new vita games) but the lack of a user replaceable baterry (like the one found in the PSP)and those ripoff prices for their propietary memory cards (what's wrong with common SD card storage?) were a no sale for me.
Then Sony just let it die by droping its support. No wonder third parties left too. It seems like Sony just wanted a new device, stamp a playstation brand to it and expect it to sell itself. With this precedent I wouldn't be surprised if the PS VR suffers the same fate.
On top of that
It's a vicious circle. No games=no vita sales, no vita sales=no games. But Yoshida is right, there's almost no reason to carry around yet another device, specially since mobiles are getting huger and faster by the minute. I mean they're 64bit for Christ's sake. There are some with controller add ons being made for them. People are more prone to change their mobiles every 2 years, that's at least two generations in the mobile space. How many new Vitas have we had that had significantly better specs? More ram? Higher clock speed? More cpu cores? Beter gpu? What we've been getting out of Sony with every new iteration of their devices is less features. Remember when they took away the ability to watch movies in hd over component?
Well f-you very much.
No wonder it's strugling because Sony dropped support of AAA titles. And comparing it to smartphone gaming? Pleeeaase… I just hate touch controls and will never play games on smartphone.
I wonder why Nintendo is doing well… time to sell Vita and buy Nintendo I suppose. Please Sony, dont do another handheld. Thank you.
Sony didn't manage the Vita, or the psp for that matter, very well. Price was always too high for the unit + Memory, seemingly didn't try to bring good games over to the Vita, and for them to simply blame the mobile gaming scene is a joke.
I have no doubt that the mobile market is taking a bite out of the handhelds market, but Nintendo is doing just fine with theirs. So what does the big N do different? they price the products very well, and they've got the games to back it, as well as monster franchises to help support it.
I guess you really can't compete unless you have Pokemon.
A new handheld isn't necessary anymore especially with PSNow. Looking into the future new consoles wouldn't be necessary if cloud gaming/PSNow really takes off. They just need a better model with the service. Rentals are nice but give me the option to buy, Sony.
On the bright side, there were 62 games shown for the Vita at TGS this year, which is almost double that of last year. Sure, many of those games are also coming out for PS4, but having those things on the go is kinda the point of a mobile system like the Vita.
To say it's the exclusives is missing the point completely.
Now, all we need is a hardware revision that gives us L2 and R2 buttons and I'd be set!
Its hard to break into something thats owned by Nintendo and hipsters.
Temjin, they already did that with the PS4. Remember all the features the PS3 had at launch? PS4 doesn't have more than 2 usb ports, and there's only the proprietary one on the back for the PS4 camera. The list goes on, and on.
Sony as a whole is struggling so much these days they're choosing to flee instead of fight on this front.
Sadly, I feel whenever the future gen comes where Sony slips up again as they did with PS3, they may handle the problem similarly as they had the Vita.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/26/2015 7:05:37 PM