Struggling against mobile devices, Sony's PS Vita sees price cut in Japan

This can't be true. The iPhone is simply a toy and no one would ever choose it over a 'serious' gaming device (oxymoron intentional).

/s

I don't think a price cut of the device itself is going to cut it; I buy these €20-€40 games for kids with a 'Game Console' (forgot the name, clamshell type) but think they'll be just as happy with a 99 cents iOS game. What's the price for games for this device?

We finally took the plunge and got a Vita for the kids. They much prefer it to the iPhone and iPad. The Vita games are incredibly more intricate and textured. I guess games are games and they all pass the time. But the Vita games significantly outclass the iOS games. Whether or not the price premium is justified, I don't know. But you definitely do get what you pay for. It's too bad iOS games are dumbing down the portable game market.

That's life in the console world. Seven year product cycles mean these impressive specs will start to look very dated against the rising and rapidly evolving smartphone and (post-iPad) tablet markets. But that's the only way console makers can make back their money on the cost of developing these platforms: long term milking of the ecosystem.

Or maybe iOS games are convincing people that the play is more important than high end graphics.

In my mind, it's a no brainer. The iPad/iPhone/IPod Touch can do many things and gaming is only one element. For a dedicated handheld, if you're not playing games, it's likely to be collecting dust.

I agree. My son has a iPod touch and a Nintendo DS. I bought him a plethora of $. 99 games which he'll play for a little while and won't play them again. Many are copies of Temple Run or Angry Birds. He always goes back to his DS.

Many people in Japan have either unlimited data or pretty high limits. They screw you with voice and text which is why the app called Line is so popular there. Cool app btw. Since most everyone has a smartphone in Japan now, few want to carry around two devices. If you have to choose between a phone and just a dedicated gaming device to carry the phone will win every time. The Vita is then relegated to a far younger market that want to play at home on wifi, but then they have to compete against TV console boxes like PS3 and the new Nintendo box in addition to computers and tablets. 

 

The same thing is happening to the iPod market as well. The iPod touch is now mainly for young people since everyone else just uses their smart phones, whether Android or iPhone or any other brand. And even there the iPod touch now has to compete not only against smart phones but the iPad as well. I think dedicated gaming devices like the Vita and the iPod market will continue to shrink as smart phones and tablets take their place and gain share. 

 

Not to mention plenty of very good free games on smart phones. Vita games are very expensive. That alone is also a major reason why it is failing. 

What I find funny is that Sony has also made half-hearted attempts to bring the PlayStation branding to their Ericsson smartphones and Android tablets. I played around with their PS tablet at a display kiosk and it was laughable. The game was some low-res port of a PSOne classic. Completely unimpressive. Just walk into any Apple Store and pick up an iPad and launch Real Racing or Asphalt 6 running smoothly in high res. Sony seems afraid to cannibalize sales of one division with another, so they keep their PlayStation-ized phones and tablets relatively lobotomized; the result are phones and tablets that neither compete with the PS Vita, nor the iPhone and iPad. Another run of the mill Android device with nothing to justify the Sony branding.

It's definitely not the play. A touch only screen severely limits what controls a game can have.

Not only that, the iphone kicks the vita GPU-wise. It's just a matter of time until we see better looking games.

I've been saying this for two years now. Neither of my kids have bothered to pick up their portable game systems since I started using an iPhone/iPad. That's why I never bothered to buy any of the newer systems and waste money. For $0.99 I can buy a game and Apple lets me install it on ALL my home devices without paying extra. Sure some games are simple, but there are some fantastic games. 20 x $1 games provide more total entertainment than a single $20 game, even if that $20 game is higher quality.

 

The iPhone/iPad haven't taken over portable gaming, but they've put a serious dent into the handheld gaming business. If Apple made a slick dock for an iPhone or iPad Touch to give you physical controls they would pretty much put the final nail in the coffin for Sony & Nintendo.

 

I think Sony and Microsoft (even though it doesn't have a handheld) will be beaten without physical controls.

 

Nintendo's not going down any time soon.

Can you recommend some because I haven't found any. There are 3rd party docks for the iPod touch.

A beefed up aTV opened up to third party apps will be devastating to Sony and Nintendo. The market will quickly be swamped with games and controllers. IOS games may not be able to compete with dedicated platforms and controllers on some levels but those offerings are overkill for the majority of people.

The high price of the console, plus the required proprietary memory cards, saddled with a lackluster launch library with only one game worth buying (Uncharted) is what really did the Vita in. Keep in mind that the 3DS was in similar shape at this point after it's launch. It wasnt until after a drastic price cut, as well as the launch of several first party games that should have been available from the start, that things turned around. Now it's the best selling console around the world.

iPhones and iPads are great, but for anything more complicated than fruit ninja or words with friends, they flat out suck thanks to the limitations of touch screen only controls. Angry birds is fun for about ten minutes, then it gets repetitive and boring. These aren't games, they're mini games. So trying to blame the iPhone or iPad for the vita's failure is just false, especially when you factor in the fact that it suffers from the same criticism as it's predecessor, which itself only saw limited success. When the original PSP launched, the state of cellphone games was at level of bejeweled, so it's not like they could blame phones back then. Even in the vacuum of smartphones, the Vita would at best be only as successful as the PSP because Sony is hardheaded and refused to listen to user complaints. They are their own worst enemy, sadly, not Apple.

I'm not sure exactly which games your talking about, but obviously games like Infinity Blade are on par with the Vita.  Found an article comparing some of the graphics: http://www.modojo.com/features/playstation_vita_nearly_outdated_graphically  

 

Which is better graphically? I'm not sure, but they're close enough make you question which one your seeing and the price delta between the games.  $4 vs $40.  

The Wii U and PSP vita are not selling come on Nintendo and Sony release your games on iOS!

It's a myth that only "simple" games are to be found on iOS. Sure, those sorts of simple games, like Angry Birds, are very popular, but there are also many other types of games that are more advanced, and are not even made for kids. I've seen some WWII strategy games for the iPad which I would not categorize as simple. iOS gaming is more than just "simple" games.

 

There is also the price difference to keep in mind. iOS gaming is on it's way up, while gaming on other platforms is declining, and it's pretty easy to see why. 

 

Why do you think that all of these other platforms are seeing declining sales? The average person is going to buy an iOS device, which does a million things, including playing games, instead of buying an expensive device with expensive games that basically only does one thing.

 

The problem with that is i own 3 out of 4 of those games and while they are most certainly beautiful, after 20 minutes they become horrifically boring with monotonous gameplay with Infinity Blade being far and away the worst offender. 

 

The games on Vita are far superior and much better quality and gameplay wise looking Gravity Daze and Uncharted being just two examples. 

 

 

 

The Vitas problem is two fold, they dont have very good software in the pipeline right now. This is the BIGGEST problem, consumers dont buy a gaming handheld without GAMES on them. The 3DS had this same issue as well before but now they have some of the best games out right now like Fire Emblem and Dragon Warrior 7. This same drought is happening with the Wii U as well. 

 

The next major issue is cost. While i do feel the Vita itself isn't that badly priced mandatory added memory cards skyrocket the price of the device...100 bucks for a 32 GB flash card is obscene and ridiculous. If you want to play old PSP games you better spring for the extra capacity, and some Vita games cant even be played without a Memory Card. 

 

I do want a Vita as i'm sure some great games are on the way (new Final Fantasy X remake looks amazing), but until the price drops especially the accessories its going to continue to get pummeled. 

A controller is an advantage for some games, but a touchscreen can also be advantage for games as well. I have been a gamer for 3 decades and my current favorite is called Modern War for iOS. It is made specifically for touchscreens and not something like the Vita. Not a kids game at all and pretty complicated. It is also one of those game you can play for a long time. I have been playing it for one year now. They keep it interesting by adding events and the levels just keep going up and up. I hardly play games on my PS3 or Mac Pro anymore. 

 

I agree that Infinity Blade is pretty boring. It's more of a graphics demo than an actual game, IMO. I bought it when it first came out and I think that I played it once for a few minutes, never to open it again. I don't even have it installed on any of my iOS devices at the moment. That is more the fault of the game designer than anything else, as great graphics does not make a great game. Many Atari 2600 games that are decades old with blocky graphics have better game play.

 

Out of those two pictures of Vita games that you posted, I don't think that the first picture looks too impressive.

 

And I notice that certain people claim that touch is not good for games. That may be true for certain types of games, where a game controller would be better, especially if the original used a game controller or a joystick, but the reverse can also be said. There are certain types of games which are better on touch than on anything else. 

One good thing with the consoles is that you can walk into a store and see the best, latest titles at a glance and know that every one was most likely made by a AAA developer. There are a few titles like this on the App Store like Lego Harry Potter, which is a fraction of the price of the DS version:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lego-harry-potter-years-5-7/id501220013?mt=8
http://www.amazon.com/Lego-Harry-Potter-Years-Nintendo-DS/dp/B0051TL9SM

but finding lots of good games is a tedious process.

The problem with buying a mobile device for gaming is that it's not ideal to play games on the go in the first place. I remember having a PSP and it felt silly playing with such a small display while sitting in the house and when I went out, I didn't take it with me because it was too bulky.

The iPhone works great for the occasional times gaming helps pass time when out and about and when indoors, there's PCs and bigger consoles. I wouldn't have a problem using the iPad more for gaming but there aren't a lot of great games. If I had a Vita, I would probably ditch it in favour of an iPhone for mobile gaming.

However, I would not be drawn to the iPhone or iPad for gaming until they get more gaming titles. For now, they fill that occasional need for mobile gaming.

I'd like to see them make a big push for gaming with the next iOS devices. They can show off Blizzard games running on the iPad - they'd be shrunk down a bit from the PC size but 2-4GB would be fine. If they had tactile feedback, that would be great for gaming but that can wait until 2014.

 

Unfortunately all the best iOS games all have this major flaw in my opinion. The best iOS games are ironically games that were developed on OTHER platforms and they arent the ones pushing the graphics boundary more than they do gameplay and story, like The World Ends with You (excellent DS game) and all the Final Fantasy, as well as Grand Theft Auto. I think this is the biggest gripe to iOS gaming in general...there is simply no depth to the overwhelming vast majority of games. 

 

I would say i find the first image of Gravity Daze to be more attracting, seeing different visual styles really makes a game stand out and that style which is called Cel-Shading really makes the game pop and look better than other games with more realistic graphics. Unfortunately you dont get these kind of experiences on iOS where its always about how good a game looks to 6 year old console hardware. Artwork beats polygon counts any day of the week. 

 

The downside to touchscreen gaming is that the screen is the controller, for some games this works well and others you'll want to snap your device in half. I've found that the DS/Wii U approach of having a touchscreen AND physical buttons is the way to go for the optimum gaming experience. Vita also has touch controls as well as the new PS4 controller. 

sure, the Vita does games better than iOS products. but the problem is, most everything else about it is inferior to iOS and Android. and some important items, like its cameras, really suck. so it fails totally as a cross-over device.

and even in the game market, it's #2 behind the 3DS, while Sony's console PS3 is #3 behind the Wii and XBox, putting the entire Sony PlayStation ecosystem in last place in a shrinking overall market. obviously not a good place to be.

and on the flip side, Sony's Xperia Play phone is a mediocre Android product that isn't as good as the Vita for games.

Sony is running out of time. its new PS4 has to be a super device, or it's going to get crushed by the XBox 720. its next generation of smartphones has to be great or it's going to get crushed by Samsung. and the Vita needs a big makeover or it's just going to be forgotten, period.

That's exactly why I never thought the PSP and now the Vita as not being good ideas.

Reminds me a little of fast-food vs. quality food restaurants.

Yes you pay more for lunch in, say, good Italian restaurant. But you also get more variety, better quality, better experience.

In burger joint, you get "choice" of burgers which are, in reality, pretty much all made of the same heavily processed ingredients, with minor differences in salad, sauce. Not unlike so many iOS/Android games being small varieties of Angry Birds, or Flight Control, or...

But the fill up belly (time?) and are cheap (free in some cases). Developers are aware of their worth, thus the price.

I'll do a burger once in a while, and play free phone/tablet game once in a while. But there is no way they will replace for me games like Uncharted, L.A. Noir, Red Dead Redemption, Battlefield 3.

I really hope there is enough people like me to keep quality gaming alive. Quality cuisine, too.

According to IGN, PS3 surpassed Xbox 360 total worldwide shipment in early January.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/10/report-ps3-surpasses-xbox-360s-worldwide-shipped-total

While not runaway success like PS2 was, it is not too bad, considering that PS3 was released a year after X360, and significantly more expensive (albeit with advantage of having BD). It is also expected, though not necessarily true, that PS3 will be available longer than X360. This is mostly based on previous PS consoles staying in sales long after new generation was released, something MS hasn't done with original Xbox. If true, however, final score will be in PS3 more signifficant advantage. I see a perfect reason for that - number of great exclusives for PS3 is really impressive, and unless PS4 ends up fully compatible (unlikely), the only way to play them will be owning PS3. And so many of them are worth it. In addition, it is still decent BD player.

Coincidently, Sony has recently released 3rd, even slimmer PS3. I think it is good sign PS3 will be available for a few more years, likely like Sony promised (10 years for each generation). I don't think they would bother redesigning it if this was last hooray for PS3.

Looks can be deceiving.

IB does look great, but there is nothing much behind good looks.

If you have a chance, try playing a bit through Uncharted on Vita. Or even better, Uncharted 2 and 3 on PS3. That is by all standards outdated 7+ years old hardware. Not that they still look amazingly good, but they also have great variety of different gameplays (platform, shooter, puzzle etc.) and production values - story, dialogues, voice acting, music and audio... are really top notch. Without much changes, they would make good (or better) Indiana Jones flick.

the XBox 360 is out of gas, yes, and everyone is waiting for the new model later this year. but it has a much larger installed base than the PS3. unless MS blows it, the XBox 720 should be a hit. so a strong PS4 from Sony is a must to have a chance to stay in the game with that. Sony would be crazy to break compatibility with PS3 games, but yes that is what they did with the Vita. that way of thinking is one of the many reasons that Sony is in deep trouble as a company overall.

The psp vita has hit its target and the little kiddies were never part of that. Now if Sony wants to see the vita get a spike in sells they better get monster hunters for it.

 

Two points here, just for clarification:

 

1) The PS3 was a very slow mover overall until the first revision, which removed backward compatibility, built in card readers, and the ability to install Linux, all for the sake of lower the cost to a level the average gamer was willing to pay. For about two years after that, the PS3 easily outsold the 360, in no small part due to the fact that back then, the PS3 was also the cheapest BluRay player on the market, so it was a two-fer. This began to change when the 360 saw it's first price drop, and it became clear that games which were released for both systems looked and ran better on the 360 for some reason. That reason turned out to be the PS3 was an absolute B*tch to code for, thanks to the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the Cell chip which was the core of the system. Because of this, Sony lost more and more exclusivity rights for big name titles, like Grand Theft Auto, as well as face in the industry. Since then, sales of the 360 have beaten the PS3 every year. They almost took back the crown with the Slim, but even that momentum didn't last because it only coincided with one must-have exclusive title, Uncharted 2.
So while it's true that overall, the PS3 has outsold the 360, keep in mind that is mostly thanks to earlier sales trends which have steadily decreased ever since, and that some 40% of all PS3 owners don't even play games on the thing anymore, if ever. I myself own a PS3 Slim, and last used it to watch Finding Nemo with my son last night. I haven't picked up the controller, however, since I beat Uncharted 3 over a year ago. My 360 has been going nonstop thanks to Black Ops 2, Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, Halo 4, and most recently Dead Space 3. This leads into another trend that popped up last year: although the PS3 may have sold more overall units since launch, for the past two years, average number of games purchased per year by 360 owners has been 3 times more than PS3 owners.

 

2) That latest PS3 revision you were crowing about has been denounced universally as a serious downgrade from the previous version. It's a plasticy, hollow piece of junk that has been received by a noticeable decrease in PS3 unit sales that coincides with it's release. The only reason the drop wasn't more pronounced is due to the run on Slim models during the holidays. It's a trend previously seen when Sony released the first revision I mentioned above, which itself was a large downgrade compared to it's predecessor. The real rub, however, was that revision came with a price drop, whereas this latest revision actually came with a price jump.

Well... PS3 and Xbox (and, realistically, Vita as of now, or in nearby future) are not high end graphics any more. If they ever were. Better graphics were available on PC already at the time consoles were released, as they were locked in at least 1 year old graphics (relative to their release) during their development time.

Gameplay is the quality of good console games. Sure, good developers like Naughty Dog will squeeze every last drop of visual power to make games look as good as possible, and occasionally better than people would think possible... but it is the gameplay, the whole immerse quality built around gameplay that keep such games sell and such developers alive and developing sequels.

Infinity Blade games on iOS don't actually look shabby at all, but there is not much behind the make-up. Now... considering hardware in consoles, I would expect that this, or next, or at least next year iPad/iPhone would have enough resources to pull out games of same complexity... but I don't think that such games would be $0.99 or even $9.99. Which is where part of the problem might be - potential customers expect iOS/Android games to be cheap, how many would fork significant amount even if the game is that good?

In addition... every console owner is potential buyer for new good game. While lots of people with iOS/Android play casual games, how many of them would go for console/PC grade game? 50%? 5%? 0.5? Dedication to gaming among iOS/Android owners is unknown quality.

But I digress. My point here is, I don't think that iOS/Android games are stealing gamers from dedicated consoles. They are two different categories, even if they are both called "games". People who don't require more than light iOS/Android games like AB would unlikely go for dedicated consoles even if there are no iOS/Android games. Likewise, people who do like high production value games are really unlikely to replace them with iOS/Android games, regardless of the attractive price.

VITA will not change the world, but I expect it to sell in line of PSP and others. PSP was not considered great success either but it did sell about 70 mils of consoles, which is still much better than X360 or PS3. Once initial high price goes down and more AAA games start appearing, I'm expecting Vita will reach those levels - regarding of development of iOS/Android games.

In US, yes... but worldwide, PS3 apparently overtook it. Plus, it seems that PS3 has lower failure rate than X360 in general... so that could add to global numbers of both consoles being in use.

Really? I saw them being purchased in droves this past Xmas.

I will respectfully disagree with some of your opinions:

It is true that more multiplats do look better, more or less, on X360, but that seems to be in line of platform game was developed on before porting it to other platform(s). Since X360 was released first and had advantage in numbers, more multi-platforms were developed on X360 and ported to PS3. Cell is complex architecture to develop for, but Sony's development kit is actually pretty good - number of PS3 exclusives will vouch for that; however, porting from completely different architecture of X360 basically negated that and ended up with inferior ports.

Same worked in other direction, albeit not so many games were initially developed on PS3. L.A. Noir comes to my mind. BF:BC2 was (arguably) considered looking a tiny bit better on PS3, as well as BF3. Oblivion. Mass Effect 2. Portal 2.

GTA was not PS3 or PS2 exclusive - there were GTA games even for original Xbox. They did lost exclusivity on Tekken, MGS, some others. But then, Bungie is developing next game (Destiny) for both Xbox and PS3, and Mass Effect appeared on PS3 for 2nd and 3rd game... so as you can see, there are exclusive developers and franchises that Xbox lost as well.

Xbox sales have beaten PS3 sales in US every year (to my knowledge), but not worldwide. How else would total number of shipped PS3 consoles overtake X360?!?

I think this is not true. In early 2012 Xbox was still leading total sales. PS3 was slowly eating up initial 6 million units sales Xbox achieved in 1st year, but never took over until late 2012. As of mid-December 2012, total PS3 sales are around 77 millions, while X360 was a bit below 76.

I don't know where is that 40% of PS3 users coming from. Or that X360 games are outselling PS3 games 3:1. Anecdotally, MS official said that he is not worried by (potential) early PS4 launch as most X360 owners are using other services more than games (so he does not expect them to cross-over to Sony for new hardware)... but down to earth and solid numbers, I managed to find that, as of March 2012, total number of X360 games sales was 618.24 million, while PS3 game sales at the same time was 595 million; this works in line with number of consoles totally sold up to that date.

If you look at following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#Xbox_360
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#PlayStation_3

You will notice trend that multiplatform games usually sold a bit better on X360 (but nowhere close to 3:1 or even 2:1), but keep in mind that PS3 has more exclusive franchises that sold well, regardless of losing some exclusivity.

Anecdotally, my PS3 is still used for games. A lot! Since Uncharted 3, I played games I haven't played before - AC Revelations, AC3, L.A. Noir, BF3, some driving and fighting games. Out of 60+ selected games for PS3 I have collected, I probably haven't played 20 - 30, so I'm expecting that my PS3 will give me a lot of good time. We also play party Move games with friends on occasion. I will not buy many new PS3 games - outside of incoming exclusives like Last of Us and new God of War likes - for I'm planning to get next-gen and I also do PC games, so piling up current gen probably would not be smart.

Well, duh. PS3 ultra-slim will be new PS2. Sony can sell consoles with loss as long as games are fully priced to cover, but once you stop getting new exclusives and whole console game library goes to essentials/platinum/budget category and generates much less income, you don't want to loose on hardware any more. I still hail them for keeping PS3 alive - new kids, who were too young to play all the Uncharteds when released, will have a chance to enjoy them still, same as they did with PS2. Unlike MS who killed original Xbox when 360 was released.

It is hollow because Sony has shrunk logic, reducing size, heat and cooling requirements. Plasticky? It is console, for God's sake. I don't think it looks any cheaper than shiny slim X360, which is still better machine than original "solid" looking X360.
Edited by nikon133 - 2/18/13 at 7:17pm

The vita seems to be a minor upgrade to the portable.

Apparently your son and his fellow users havent done enough to help Sony. 

I do have a PS3 but will not purchase a PS Vita at it's current price.