I'm not being a jerk in the slightest. That is exactly, word for word, what he is saying.

His opinion is that the PS3 and Vita are factually poor consoles with (and I am quoting from half of his comments in this thread here) "no games" for the sole reason that these consoles lack the kinds of games that he wants. And that Sony is failing because its consoles are no good (for the aforementioned reason).

He might have a really awesome avatar, but his taste in games is not a measure for whether a console is worthwhile, or whether a business is failing.

The Vita doesn't have a slow start. It has a sluggishly depressing start to the point where it is about to flop. I doubt I would even call it a "competitor" to the 3DS.

And for the record, some of us base our hate on personal experience. I base mine on the lousy experience I had on the PS3.

For a console with limited AAA-support, 4.4 million units isn't bad.

4.4 million units is enough to start supporting the console with a bit more than cheap ports. I would expect this year to ramp up, not down, for the Vita.

For the Vita's sake, it better ramp up I bet we'll see a price cut this year if Sony wants to ramp up

Also, the Vita sold 2.2 million units since June? I somehow doubt that

@lz Sony keeps saying price drop is a no show

@Lz - The bundles around the Holiday season gave the Vita a big boost in sales. Not a great boost, but it still helped.

A little bit. Current rumors point the PS4 being A pretty big jump with no BC. The 720 is looking to be stronger than WiiU but still reasonable price wise.

That and its rumored that devs are more excited about Xbox 3 than PS4.

The fact that the PS3 is a poor console is an opinion of mine, therefore it is my opinion that it is poor because it doesn't have games I like. That's a perfectly fair statement. I fail to see how there's anything wrong with that logic. I say they're doing poorly because I'm not the only one with a taste for these certain games. One of my close friends literally plays Legend of Dragoon religiously, once a year all the way through since it's release. I've unlocked all of the secrets in Jak 2 and 3 at least 4 times each. Basically every friend I've had in real life who owned a PS2 has played and loved these games, and were heartbroken with news that Jak 4 or Legend of Dragoon 2 had almost happened. I'm just expressing fandom for these awesome games in my own way. You're being a jerk.

And thank you, it's a picture of my pet Coco taking his first bath!

I like people who have pets other than the usual (boring) cats and dogs. I've got rabbits, and they're awesome <3

Anyway, the PlayStation 3 has actually been more successful on a global scale than the Xbox 360. Sony's financial problems have been far larger than the sales of the console and its software - both of which have been quite robust. In fact the PlayStation business is the one that remains largely profitable for Sony.

The Vita's another story, but to suggest the PS3 - especially in this point of its life cycle - does not have mass-market appeal is simply not a realistic assessment of the market.

@Bankai I don't know about more successful. Sony was raking in serious losses for a long time on the system, and Microsoft was able to make a ton of money through Xbox Live Gold. Then, when it became less profitable to charge for online, they put up adds that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay up on the dashboard for a short while. Plus, all of Microsoft's first party games have raked in some serious sales numbers. The same can't be said for all of Sony's.

Then there's Kinect vs. Move, which has been way more profitable for Microsoft than Sony.

We don't know what kind of money Sony is making from PlayStation Plus - likely it's a profit - and Sony sells associated services such as movies and Music Unlimted directly through the PlayStation Network.

Losses in hardware profit are irrelevant as long as the attach rate for the console is high - which it is for Sony's PS3 - and Sony directly produces more games that Microsoft.

Ultimately it's impossibly to tell which platform is the most financially successful overall, but the point I was making remains valid - the PlayStation is a mass-market device with a global following that in many parts throughout the world outperforms its rivals.

It helps to research

Sony's official quote was 160,000 in November. Not bad at all.

@Bankai I'm not arguing it wasn't profitable. Just that Microsoft's system probably made more money. Free online costs Sony a lot of money, which is offset by PS Plus (which is very great, by the way. That's looking more and more successfu by the day, but I digress). 3rd party games in the west pretty much always sell better on 360, so that's a boost in mula for Microsoft too.

No offense, but that is pretty bad. We're talking about a system that was $70 less than normal and came with what is essentially 8 free games. And a memory card.

Wow...really? Sony better step it up soon then

Just that Microsoft's system probably made more money.

That's an assumption you can't possibly begin to justify without making more assumptions.

Free online costs Sony a lot of money,

It's loss leading. Just like the console is. Free online means more people are inclined to use it which, in theory results in a more active PSN.

I haven't got any data suggesting how digital sales on PSN compare to XBLA digital sales. Do you?

No offense, but that is pretty bad. We're talking about a system that was $70 less than normal and came with what is essentially 8 free games. And a memory card.

And sold far better than it had previously. Ergo, a success.

Sony's president says the Vita comes in the low end of sales expectations. But that means it's within the margin of error. Therefore Sony has no reason to give up on it.

Thanks for reminding me I didn't have the money to take advantage of that awesome deal.

An assumption justified by facts, not more assumptions. Sony and Microsoft both make a cut on every video game that comes to their system. The sales numbers for games on 360 in the west (ergo, not Japan) are much higher on 360 when looking at the games that come for both systems, generally speaking. Yes, there are exceptions, especially for games that are Japanese in origin, like Final Fantasy XIII, but for the most part games sell more copies on 360, especially western ones.

Free online costs Sony a lot of money,

It's loss leading. Just like the console is. Free online means more people are inclined to use it which, in theory results in a more active PSN.

I haven't got any data suggesting how digital sales on PSN compare to XBLA digital sales. Do you?

Can you give me a generalization? It'd be greatly appreciated. It wouldn't surprise me if PSN sales were good, especially with all the quality on there.

No offense, but that is pretty bad. We're talking about a system that was $70 less than normal and came with what is essentially 8 free games. And a memory card.

And sold far better than it had previously. Ergo, a success.

Sony's president says the Vita comes in the low end of sales expectations. But that means it's within the margin of error. Therefore Sony has no reason to give up on it.

Completely agree. Sony has put way too much R&D into the system to completely abandon it. And with that poll from Famitsu, it'd be foolish to just up and leave the system right now. Wait it out for a year or two more and if things are looking worse, then it may be time to cut losses. But certainly not now.

An assumption justified by facts, not more assumptions. Sony and Microsoft both make a cut on every video game that comes to their system. The sales numbers for games on 360 in the west (ergo, not Japan) are much higher on 360 when looking at the games that come for both systems, generally speaking. Yes, there are exceptions, especially for games that are Japanese in origin, like Final Fantasy XIII, but for the most part games sell more copies on 360, especially western ones.

The problem with your assumptions is that the only market that counts is the US market. Games that were sold in Japan across both platforms (including the likes of Call of Duty and Skyrim) were substantially more popular on the PlayStation 3.

Japan is the second largest market for games on the planet and you can't just dismiss game sales within Japan when looking at a product's global profitability.

Furthermore, the gap that you're talking about with the Xbox 360 is nowhere near as wide in Europe and Australia, where the PS3 performed far better. The only marker the Xbox 360 had a substantially dominant hold over is the US one.

Can you give me a generalization? It'd be greatly appreciated. It wouldn't surprise me if PSN sales were good, especially with all the quality on there.

I don't - it was a genuine question to you, as I would like to see which platform's digital distribution storefront performed better. No one seems to be able to tell journalists these numbers so a Google search tells me nothing.

What I suspect though (based entirely on marketing theory), is that the heightened engagement that PlayStation Plus offers means additional sales on the PSN. People have to log in to the PSN to download their free games, basically, and this translates into additional opportunities to sell them games.

I suspect Sony's data will tell us that PSPlus directly sells games.

Completely agree. Sony has put way too much R&D into the system to completely abandon it. And with that poll from Famitsu, it'd be foolish to just up and leave the system right now. Wait it out for a year or two more and if things are looking worse, then it may be time to cut losses. But certainly not now.

Even more simplistically - Hirai's comments would suggest that Sony is not actually that disappointed with the Vita's sales. Being on the "low end" means underperformance, not poor performance.

You were the one I had the debate about whether the Vita's sales figures are that bad for Sony itself, right? Working on the assumption that Sony never expected the Vita to outsell the 3DS, remember? Well, here's a sign that the Vita's only somewhat missing expectations. If you're only aiming to jump 1m 20cm, you're not going to be disappointed when you hit the bar at 2m 00cm.

@Bankai Completely agree with the second comment.

On the first one, let's think of it this way. Let's say software sales are about even regarding both platforms accross all territories. Were we to discount it, then Microsoft would still have probably found their system more profitable than Sony's. Hardware and software sales are about the same, but Microsoft is able to turn in a quicker profit from XBL gold and Kinect (which more people have than PS Plus, but I could see that change in the future). Not to mention the amount R&D for 360 was probably significantly less than PS3 since they used parts already out there rather than build a proccessor from the ground up like Sony did.

Keep in mind, this is looking at now, not in 3 years time. The PS3 could very well turn out to be the more successful one.

As for the Vita comment. Sony did have to alter their projections for how well it would sell. They were thinking about 10 million pre-launch. That quickly changed.