I don't recall anyone around here saying that -- that Vita would outsell the 3DS after the price cut and Mario duo. Maybe I missed it. I was pretty adamant about it when the 3DS was $250, but it was a hard sell after Nintendo made it as cheap as the DSi.
In any case, the most important thing in Vita's case is support. As long as it does well in the US and EU, and doesn't suffer from poor software sales of even notable games, it'll be in good shape
-- "When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."
that seems like a longshot given how PSP did vs. how it did in Japan. is the launch lineup more US-friendly? yeah. is it enough to make it succeed? it's got a long way to go for success.
eh, the vita will be fine. no need to doomsay that either. at this point honestly, the 3DS looks like its range is somewhere between outselling the GBA and outseling the DS. the Vita's range i'd put somewhere around 10 mil +/- the PSP. personally i'd expect the difference to be very similar in terms of point to point, but the Vita will last more time.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
I don't think anything can be said about Vita in the US yet, or its long term support. What's more important than hardware numbers are the health of the software. Sony can afford to sell less units than the PSP in every territory if it sees larger software numbers, which is what I think will happen. I could see Vita selling 'only' about 40-50 million vs. the PSP's 80 million but with much healthier game support, both from consumers and developers.
-- "When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."
HM, this has only been touched on, but it's Japan. If the Vita can't succeed there, it's not going to do any better outside of it. Actually it's likely to do a lot worse. Handheld gaming is massively dominant in Japan, and there's a particular discrepancy in PSP sales between regions. Oh sure, it could happen the other way around this time, but that's highly unlikely given that it's a simple prediction-a handheld system will be strongest in the area where handhelds are strongest.
Could Vita pick up? Yes. But it'd need an almost 3DS-level price cut (highly unlikely) and an actual software library to do so. Anything could happen, but I wouldn't count on it. And frankly, if it doesn't, it's a vicious cycle from there. It's never going to get that support you mentioned because it doesn't have any foundations to build on software-wise. People won't buy Vita because there's no games, leading to developers making fewer games, and bam, the system will be abandoned.
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The system has barely been out for two weeks; it hasn't even had its second shipment, from what I understand. There's no reason to talk about 'not succeeding in Japan,' because we aren't there yet. The PSP wasn't nearly as popular as it is now out of the gate either; same for the PS3. Sony systems are always planned for long term. Vita doesn't need any miracles to 'turn it around.' There will be plenty of major Japanese games made for it, no doubt. The more interesting thing with Vita, in terms of games, is Western support.
-- "When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."
From: ZFS | #055 I don't think anything can be said about Vita in the US yet, or its long term support. What's more important than hardware numbers are the health of the software. Sony can afford to sell less units than the PSP in every territory if it sees larger software numbers, which is what I think will happen. I could see Vita selling 'only' about 40-50 million vs. the PSP's 80 million but with much healthier game support, both from consumers and developers.
This is very true as well. I probably bought only like 5 PSP games ever, but the Vita has like 5 games I want out of the launch lineup alone.
But I think you underestimate how dreadful the PS3's start was. Sony lost an insane amount of money, and the system took years before it actually found success. And it did so with advantages the Vita won't have.
Incidentally, the PSP is a tricky issue. It started great outside of Japan, then completely dropped off the radar. It picked up in Japan because Japan began to shift to handheld domination, and that obviously helped the PSP.
And please, let's not try and imply that any of this was planned.
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I don't think we can have this discussion if you're coming from a place of "Vita is already dead in water." No reasonable discussion can start from that.
I will say that the PSP's problem was never that it couldn't sell hardware in the U.S., only software. It sold nearly 20 million units in the US, and more than that in Europe.
-- "When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."
The fact those things are so easy to hack and pirate games is the main problem with software sales. Vita was hacked day 1 so I don't see that changing much.
Vita wasn't actually 'hacked' in the sense you're talking about. The hack was on the PSP emulator side, which denies access to Vita itself but does allow for PSP games to be played on it.
-- "When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."
From: FateStayAlbion | #067 The fact those things are so easy to hack and pirate games is the main problem with software sales. Vita was hacked day 1 so I don't see that changing much.
No, the problem was that instead of having to deal with dumbass UMD carts and stuff like that, you could just pirate the game and run it off the memory stick and it was way better.
With Vita games, it's now easier to just buy the game off PSN and download it instead of hunting online to find questionable downloads.
I'm no expert, but I think the amount of social interaction that has been put into Vita will make it more attractive to keep the official firmware. Friends, trophies, online multiplayer, access to the PSN store -- those are all things that weren't part of PSP, which was a fairly isolated system. Maybe you can still do those things with custom firmware, I'm not sure (I never even hacked my PSP), but I think that's one of the things that will always keep people coming. It also helps if it's as cumbersome as possible to hack something. Part of the reason PSP hacks were so widespread is how easy it was to do -- YouTube is filled with tutorials of kids going step by step with some batteries and pencils. I don't think that will matter, though. That was only one reason why the PSP stopped selling software in the U.S.
-- "When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."
no being hacked isn't the problem, the DS had easier piracy going for it than the PSP for most if not all of its life. its software sales were fine. the PS3 is a walking example that no piracy isn't the main problem these things have. you can try to say it's part of the problem, but really, it's far simpler to just say that not that much interest in the software existed either.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
ZFS posted... I don't think we can have this discussion if you're coming from a place of "Vita is already dead in water." No reasonable discussion can start from that.
I will say that the PSP's problem was never that it couldn't sell hardware in the U.S., only software. It sold nearly 20 million units in the US, and more than that in Europe.
Hardware sales are largely unimportant, software's where the money is. Especially when you're selling a system for a loss. Y'see, this is why the 3DS price cut was okay, because Nintendo are already putting out games that are selling millions. And when you have bad hardware AND bad software sales? God help you.
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From: ZFS | #080 You can still buy and download games from the PSN store on custom firmware, and play games online with other people not using custom firmware?
I have trouble with it, it's pretty unstable, but I am running 1-2 year old custom firmware.
It took a few years before custom firmwares got the ability to work with PSN though
Lightning Strikes posted... Like I said, all predictions.
But I think you underestimate how dreadful the PS3's start was. Sony lost an insane amount of money, and the system took years before it actually found success. And it did so with advantages the Vita won't have.
Incidentally, the PSP is a tricky issue. It started great outside of Japan, then completely dropped off the radar. It picked up in Japan because Japan began to shift to handheld domination, and that obviously helped the PSP.
And please, let's not try and imply that any of this was planned.
the PS3 was a bit of both planned and unplanned - certainly arrogance caused major missteps, but they wanted to win the Blu Ray/HD DVD war and the PS3 helped to accomplish that for them.
Nearly every professional analyst is saying that tablets and smartphones will kill handheld gaming soon, just like they have for the past couple of years.
But it won't happen, just like how PC gaming will never die. There will ALWAYS be a market for dedicated gaming handhelds, no matter how many people own tablets. To say that handheld gaming will be killed is to say that the market for handheld consoles will cease to exist, which is dumb.
That is, until you get into more gray territory. What if you had a Vita that could natively run Android apps. Is that a tablet now? Or a handheld game console? The market may go in that direction for sure, but $1 apps are not going to kill the desire for AAA $40+ handheld games.