PS Vita Sales Plummet After First Week on Market

I wrote this for gametrailers the following is a complete copy paste of my original post

I would love to know how popular uncharted is in Japan, because it's really the only system sounding they have at launch. Mixing with widespread bug reports, and overpriced memory cards, I'm not surprised it didn't sell well.

This is going to say the hardware needs be cheaper, in fact it's a great deal for what you get. Only thing holding the hardware back is her reliance on proprietary memory stick that cost 2 to 3 times more than is the equivalent secure digital.

And let's be completely honest here, this system is going to be built to sell apps online, games online, I will most likely have patches for its core games even if you are only playing physical medium. You need a memory stick for this and they know it. And you can't get by with the cheapest memory stick, you might for the first few months, but that is going to get used up fast, you need at least 16 to 32 GB, and SD card would cost about $16 or $32 Sony's cost $40 to $100.

If the ps vita gets out some good exclusives like god of war/gran turismo/InFamous and maybe cuts its price down to 200/250 it would do lot better imo

This is still the major head scratcher for me. It makes some sense from a security standpoint, but none from a marketing standpoint. I hardly doubt whatever modifications they made to the flash memory justifies the price increase either. Even Memory Stick flash memory is still quite expensive compared to SD based storage.

There's a few upcoming dedicated titles for the PS Vita that has me interested, but the pricing of the unit and storage is currently a major turn off for me.

the question is if I rip my old PSX game out to PS vita, can I play it? IMO they should have use this PSX library as selling point. It will be the whole diff story if they do.

Stop it! Stop comparing Phones and Tablets to VIDEO GAME CONSOLES/PORTABLES. They belong to two different and highly distinct markets.

The Vita is having trouble because there's no software to push it. Nintendo had the same problem with the 3DS until they dropped the price and released better software on it. This has little to do with Tablets or Phones.

I don't have a smartphone (a flasherv7 phone lol, very old) or a tablet or a laptop or a MP4 player. But i'm highly looking forward in buying one of these things. Never had a handheld before. I think the PSP vita will be great for me since its an all in one device.

If they really want to move some units, throw in a collection of classic PSP/PS2 games to hold over early adopters until they get a large game collection build.

it doesn't need a price cut, considering that the phones of considerable power are in the $600-$800 range. What the 3G version of this could do is contract subsidize it.

And it's less likely that they brought this memory out for security reasons, take a look at its size memory stick Pro duo is about the size of an SD card, this new memory stick is about the size of secure digital micro. It's a bit bigger but still it's about the same. I'm betting this has more to do with wanting to make it smaller for other devices in the future than for security purposes, unless this new memory stick is VITA only.

That said memory stick Pro duo has adapters for secure digital micro cards where you can fit to 16 GB cards into one memory stick Pro duo adapter and a 32 GB Pro duo. I'm assuming we will see the same in the future.

I said this thing would be a major failure. And when I did, I got downvoted....

no it wasn't even about the price of the 3DS it was that there was absolutely no system selling software. By the time the system selling piece of software came out, it was 4 to 6 months after release, and people were hesitant to buy even then not because the price but because that 4 to 6 months not a single game worth buying came out, and also Capcom royally screwed them by making the first 3DS game without the deletable save, as in you cannot trade in for reasonable price because they cannot remove your progress.

People were afraid of that crap going two other games.
People were also afraid that things would be coming out fast enough, and they weren't and still aren't.

The main differences is the 3DS got system selling games. The PSV only has uncharted and like I said above but not sure how popular uncharted is in Japan.




prices a fair comparison, use isn't.
The PSV is cheap compared to other smart phones of similar quality and probably will be well into the next two years. Games and controllers are far better on it than on a phone.

high price. underwhelming launch game line up. psn hacks. modified tos to noy sue sony and then get sued for including that clause. sony's usual territorial approach to software and hardware and content. plethora of tablet and smartphones offering much much more at lower prices. not taking lesson from n3ds sales.
sony had this coming. hopefully handheld console gaming gets cornered into a niche market instead of mainstream.
unless prices are lowered under $160-199.

I kind of understand the no sue clause.

If you're looking at it in are not cynical about it, the clauses that prevent lawsuits, not prevent people from getting stuff. A class-action lawsuit will only benefit the lawyer,while Sony wants to keep this over the court's, meaning the money will go directly to you.

The cynical way is that Sony is saying "go screw yourself, if we screw up where we do something you don't like to damn bad"

both ways of looking at it have merit

This only happened was handled horrifically, but at the end of the day they didn't really get any information they couldn't already get. If a credit card is stolen in almost every first world country and is used for fraudulent purchase, you are not responsible.

if the PSV region free? I just googled PlayStation Vita and got nothing in the first couple of links and I don't really want to look more for.

Tablets and smart phones are offering crap. Most games look like a flash-based, most games have crap control, most games are barely enjoyable with the on-screen buttons, and most of those handhelds cost over $600, remember their subsidized.

Dude, everybody's broke after Christmas. Of course they'll plummet. Duh!

Also, launching it a few days before Christmas eve wasn't a very bright idea either. Had they launched it in, say, October and worldwide (not just Japan) I think it would've been an entirely different story.

Big surprise. No one wants that. Knock that crap off. Build something innovative, and you'll make money.

how could the sales be bad, whats not to like about it.

overpriced console with overpriced low storage memory card. To top it off, it randomly crashes.

seems like a good deal to me.

I think the people who would've gotten one for Christmas gifts already would have in the first week. It also doesn't help that the game selection was lackluster to begin with.

The technology is there to make this a capable handheld for a quite a while. Once they get the first redesign where it's much cheaper to produce, you will see a surge of sales, plus there will be tons of games by then. If I was a person who had time and was stuck on a bus or train every day, I would buy a Vita, but since I rarely have to time to play, I just plop out my OG DS if I need to.

Vita looks awesome, but it is pricey.

Nintendo should of ditched the stupid migraine-inducing 3D and went for better hardware.

Time will tell I guess, but I agree that Sony will have to drop the price in order for the Vita to be successful.

I was soooo looking forward to the Vita too but seems they took note of what MS did wrong with WP 7 with lackluster apps and did the exact same thing here with tiny library of games. Bad move Sony, I mean thats just dumb, you had a perfect example of what NOT to do and you still managed to screw it up.

crap product...that's why sales aren't going so well

I am more afraid of sony removing the screen in the future. You know! Main selling features they later remove then they sue you for installing your own screen.

Just another fail for Sony. Seems to me they haven't had a hot product since the original Playstation. They must be doing great outside the US or they'd be sunk by now.

they should has psx/psp/ps2 games on the thing for like $2 a pop, it would destroy the tablet market, and porting it over shouldn't take too long at all

I'd rather play Angry Birds on my iPhone than PS3 ports on a Vita.

Really? Those sales figures don't look like a total failure to me. Of course it's not going to sell as much the second week as it did the first.

They just need a better game library (the idea to have a library of PSX/PS2 games is a great idea), and to ditch the overpriced proprietary storage. The "technical issues" have been blown way out of proportion.

Three words: Overpriced. Proprietary. Storage.

Do people keep forgetting smart phones are not the same cost as a 3ds or vita? even if the PHONE is free the expensive data plan per month alone costs more then a 3ds and vita and several games over time that and i dont care what anyone says, apps are fing boring after 10-15 min while 3ds and vita have true console platform games.. I hate how they are compared as the same.

Maybe i'd get it if it was a phone too...

If their proprietary memory cards didn't cost as much as the device themselves, then it would be better.. If If they used today's standard SDHC cards, then it might clearing blow the NDS out of the scene.

One of the reason why the DS did so well was because of the games of course and the R4.
Even though the PSP has been hacked, the games take up too much space on the memory card and the PSP library kinda sucks.

I think one of the reason the Xbox was more popular than the PS3, even though 50% of them failed, was because the Xbox was easily hacked.

Android Devices > iCrap Devices because they can be easily rooted and customized to install black market apps.

The Wii.......Softmod FTW!

Moral of the story.....make your device hackable and it will reign.
I just like being able to have the ability to use my device to its full potential.

Most people on this site could have saved Sony a boatload of cash and told them a year or two ago that their handheld was obsolete with the introduction of the new smart phones.

I'm guessing portable games need to be simple, not technically requiring, and can be picked up and dropped quite easily.

Which to me is Pokemon. I don't really know any PS games that you can have a blast on for 15 minutes on a bus then back to whatever. Let's face it, when you get home, you're not gonna be suffering a diddly screen when you have a PC + full screen with games with alot more depth.

That's the issue here, and the comparison back to the phones comes around again, you can have a blast on a game such as Angry Birds, then put it down and back to work. Would you fork out 30-40 euros for a game when you want to entertain yourself at lunch or on the bus?

I'm sorry, but how could they not realise this.

I don't see how you can step up mobile gaming, given the constraints on time available for mobile gaming. The only reason the 3ds is not a complete flop is due to a hardcore of support and a gimmick (or hook) that will get you to buy one.