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Topic: Shuhei Yoshida: Climate "not Healthy" for Vita Successor

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IceClimbers

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-09-26-sony-climate-not...

In a Q&A portion of his EGX 2015 developer session, Yoshida says that due to the rise of mobile gaming, the climate isn't healthy for a Vita successor.

Basically, don't hold your breath for another Sony handheld, which isn't surprising in the least.

Thoughts?

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IceClimbers

@Morpheel: The Vita will probably get pulled along by JRPGs that are PS4/Vita. As for localisations, I don't know. It's possible that a lot of the PS4/Vita games get localized, but only the PS4 version.

It's sad, but unsurprising. The unfortunate truth is that there isn't a place for a Sony handheld anymore. Sony is stuck between the threat of mobile gaming, which has eaten away at the handheld market and continues to do so, and Nintendo, who still has a death grip on the handheld market despite the reduced size.

Nintendo has the franchises to keep handhelds going for as long as they possibly can. Franchises like Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Fire Emblem, Zelda, Super Mario, etc. in combination with dedicated JRPG support from 3rd parties as well as Monster Hunter and Yokai Watch give them the strength and appeal to keep handhelds going. Oh, and let's not forget the handheld franchise that is Pokemon.

Sony just doesn't have that type of mass appeal to justify doing another handheld.

Edited on by IceClimbers

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LzWinky

The Vita is so niche that I doubt a successor would ever come out.

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KingMike

Yeah, I'd agree. While PSP had a slow start it turned out with a nice library by the end.
But if Vita hasn't gained momentum by now (when did Vita even come out? 3 years ago?), it's probably not going to.

KingMike

CaviarMeths

Morpheel wrote:

That's a bit sad. Well, maybe they can continue supporting the vita a bit longer?

They're already down to 1-2 first party Vita games per year and there are zero Sony worldwide studios confirmed to have a Vita game in development. It's only being supported by 3rd parties, and almost never as an exclusive platform.

It's too bad though that Sony has little interest in adapting their business model to the handheld market.

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

Angelic_Lapras_King

They really did not learn any lessons after the PSP outside of Japan, so it comes as no surprise really.

Yeah they're both nice handhelds but lets be honest, most people hack their PSPs to reach their full potential and I'm pretty sure once the Vita servers and firmware comes to an complete stop, the same will happen more for Vitas....

Angelic_Lapras_King

SuperWiiU

KingMike wrote:

Yeah, I'd agree. While PSP had a slow start it turned out with a nice library by the end.
But if Vita hasn't gained momentum by now (when did Vita even come out? 3 years ago?), it's probably not going to.

The PSP didn't start off that slow. It had some major third party (exclusive) titles in the first few months, much more than the Vita ever got.

Megas75

Might've been more successful had Sony actually try to support it :/

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Morph

It'd be cool if a lot of the 3rd parties made the jump to the next Nintendo handheld, there have been a couple of vita games that I would like to have played but not enough for me to go out and buy one. Maybe with a jump in power or whatever the NX might offer a lot of those devs might see a future for their games on a Nintendo platform and maybe Nintendo might finally get those 3rd party games they've struggled with in recent years, mainly by default.

Morph

Grumblevolcano

@IceClimbers: I'll be interested to see if Yokai Watch takes off in the west.

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KingMike

SuperWiiU wrote:

KingMike wrote:

Yeah, I'd agree. While PSP had a slow start it turned out with a nice library by the end.
But if Vita hasn't gained momentum by now (when did Vita even come out? 3 years ago?), it's probably not going to.

The PSP didn't start off that slow. It had some major third party (exclusive) titles in the first few months, much more than the Vita ever got.

I can only remember lots of criticism in its early years, especially when UMD Videos overshadowed games.
I could swear at one point even Miyamoto (or one of the Nintendo VIPs) expressed sympathy for its market performance.

KingMike

Peek-a-boo

Megas75 wrote:

Might've been more successful had Sony actually try to support it :/

This frame of mind from some folks is always baffling, seeing as you had the likes of:

Assassin's Creed: Liberation, Disgaea 3, Dynasty Warriors, FIFA, Gravity Rush, Hot Shots Golf, LittleBigPlanet, Little King's Story, Lumines, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat, MotorStorm RC, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Persona 4, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Rayman Origins, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Street Fighter X Tekken, Super Monkey Ball, Touch My Katamari, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Unit 13, Virtua Tennis 4 and WipEout 2048.

All of those games were available to buy and play within the first six months of the PS Vita's life. That's more third party support in a space of six months than the 3DS ever had in all its three or four years, even though I prefer the Nintendo developed games on my 3DS more so than Sony's offerings, bar the excellent Gravity Rush.

If that isn't 'effort', then I do not know what is!

Shu is right; with the 3DS market gradually shrinking and the smartphones being a decent enough 'thing' to play a quick game of so-and-so here and there, the PS Vita has had a rather tough time of it in today's world.

Even Nintendo are now hopping into the mobile games space, for better or worse.

Peek-a-boo

Sleepingmudkip

Now I casually wait for stores or sony to drop the price of the vita to 99 dollars for me to pick it up.

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@Peek-a-boo: Wait, Are you saying that in the 3DS's entire 4 years of life, it has received less than 26 Third Party games?

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Peek-a-boo

@Aromaiden: I phrased it out-of-sorts; just meant that the slightly overwhelming choice of third party games in a space of six months hasn't really been seen to quite the same extent on the 3DS, especially the Western support. Obviously the 3DS has a bigger draw nowadays though.

Either way, the generous third party support didn't make any consequential difference to the PS Vita in the long run, which is a bit a shame.

Peek-a-boo

Jazzer94

@Peek-a-boo: I'm a Vita owner and honestly your comment is hilarious, Sony did the bear minimum and after 2013 have up if you want an example of a console if great support for most of its lifespan look at the PSP.

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Ryu_Niiyama

@Peek-a-boo: many of the games you listed were either ports or had poor controls. Ninja gaiden is a port of a port. Granted not all of them were in this category but enough were to make one dismissive of the library. (which was my complaint with the 3rd party support for the launch wiiu games) I will say I did start buying the fighting game ports once I got a third job, but other than that my vita library is New games only. ...As such it is still small (12 compared to 52 on the 3ds).

To make matters worse Sony seems to be trying to push a unified game ecosystem with the ps4 and vita meaning many games, even exclusives to sony appear on both the 4 and the vita. Unless you are a vita only owner you will likely drift towards the ps4 games first. I don't even own a ps4 yet and when there is a choice and no pc port (looking at you toukiden) I'm building a small ps4 library.

Granted this is all my personal experience but for me if it weren't for the jrpgs and Japanese games the vita would be a paper weight there is not a compelling library otherwise as many games are offered on superior platforms.

Confused about the 3ds third party comment....the 3ds has a ton of 3rd party support...very little western support true but that is a Nintendo thing at this point.

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Ryu_Niiyama

As far as the actual quote I agree that the the market for the sony handheld isn't there. It doesn't seem like they have the library for the mobile Japanese and for westerners its a port machine. Why play this on a vita if I can play it on a ps4 (or everywhere else but nintendo for that matter) ?

I personally thought they should have made the vita tv and bundled it with they system from day one to give a cheaper option that would appeal to both sides of the fence. You want mobile? Play on the best handheld in the market, you want console but can't afford a ps4? Have a vita tv. Don't get me wrong there are some real gems on the system, but many of them are on other systems as well, weren't localized or are port/remakes. I think the port remake thing in the west works on consoles because it is replacing an existing system but for many in the west a handheld is an add on as not everyone has a long hands free commute. That being said I think library is why it hasn't sparked in Japan since I've seen some big games move systems pretty well.

Handhelds need unique experiences...they should not be cheap console alternatives. They should have a viable and compelling library on their own. For instance I sorta hate handheld gaming (I have two psps, a vita, and soon to be 6 3dses) but if there are games that I can't get on console/tv (i do love the vita tv for that reason) then I'm going to go get myself a hand held. The 3ds is amazing at that. Even the franchises that are on both 3ds and wiiu are not the same game. Nintendo is the king of "if you want to play this you play it here" while sony offers more choice (ps3/4 or vita)...problem is that means that more people choose a different system. That is the downside to multiplats. Until sony makes the vast majority of their handheld library a unique experience that can ONLY be had on their system they will continue to cater to mainly the handheld only crowd. Which obviously is not big enough or willing to support two systems.

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CaviarMeths

BinaryFragger wrote:

Sony is wrong about the climate not being healthy; the Vita is actually doing pretty well in Japan (heck, it outsold the Wii U in Japan by a significant margin last week) and it could do decently well in the West too if they properly supported it.

The 3DS is going to hit 20 million in Japan this fiscal year. Vita will not hit 4.5 million. Proportionately, it's not selling much better in Japan than it is in the rest of the world. It outsold the Wii U by a small margin last week and I think it was the first time that happened since before Splatoon released in May. It happened this time because several new model colours just launched. The only current gen platform it consistently outsells is the XB1.

The software isn't doing great in Japan either. Plenty of new games, but they all sell poorly. I think the only Vita games released this year to break 200k sales in Japan are... Minecraft and a re-release of God Eater 2. Nine Vita games released last week and all but one of them debuted at less than 20k sales. Minecraft is the only Vita game that released in a previous week that's still holding on in the top 30, so they're not having any significant legs either. All of these new Vita releases are getting thwomped in sales by Splatoon in its 4th month of release. And now almost every announced Vita game in development is a multiplat.

Sony's problem is that they designed a handheld that was supposed to appeal to the "hardcore" console crowd, but the hardcore console crowd doesn't particularly care about handhelds. Pokemon players sure do though, so there's always going to be a market for Nintendo handhelds. Even if we do have to endure regular "Nintendo should make a Pokemon MMO with all regions for consoles" threads.

Edited on by CaviarMeths

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

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