When we were younger, I and my friends all got our PSP consoles from our parents as gifts about the same time. The PSP was a hit both at school (we would use the breaks to make Naruto, Worms and what, not tournaments) and at home (we would meet up and keep playing the same games). We had always a great time. Not only we but our parents as well: they had a way of pressuring us onto doing our homework. Later, we started using more of the features of the console, we would use them while commuting to music or watching movies on trips.
Then in 2011, Sony dropped the Vita. I still remember the enthusiasm: the PS Vita seemed like a worthy PSP successor. It almost had the power of a PS3 home console, while maintaining the form factor of the original PSP and adding a second thumbstick. Everything else (the OLED touchscreen, the rear trackpad and the 3G radio) was rather gimmicky (at least for me). Nevertheless, it was still on my list for Santa that Chrismas. That neither me not my friends got it that year (and for the record - not even later on) is a different story.
The solid launch lineup really impressed me and I actually believed that it was going to be a huge success.
Regardless of the good hardware, great games and an enthusiastic fan base, the PS Vita quickly turned out to be one of the greatest commercial failures in recent gaming history.
To put that into perspective: it took mere weeks for the PS4 to sell more units than the Vita managed in more than 2 years. To date, the Vita managed to sell (keep in mind that we are in 2018 and the Vita launched in 2011) mere 10-15 million units. The Nintendo Switch, launched only last year, managed to sell about 20 million units. The PSP was sold 82 million times, the 3DS 73 million and the best selling portable console (the original DS), which also is the second best selling video game system, has sold 154 million units.
Compared to the 3DS (it's direct competitor), the Vita is a lot more powerful, as mentioned previously. As games like Killzone: Mercenary proved, it can even run a PS3 game engine without problems. The OLED screen of the first Vita model is gorgeous, although it was replaced on the second iteration with a less expensive LCD panel. Other features like the touchscreen and the second analogue stick were welcome improvements over the PSP - the proof that Sony can listen to gamer's feedback. Other features were more or less gimmicky, like the 3G functionality on the first model (which was removed on the later iteration because no one cared about it) and the rear touchpad - it was used only in a handful of games and it could not be removed from the system in a later iteration to lower the price a little bit.
Of course, the hardware is not important at all (Nintendo has been getting away with low-end hardware since the GameBoy days - that ended with the Switch of course), because this is ultimately a gaming console. What matters are games. Huge games. Triple-A titles.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not one of those people who say that the Vita has no games - everyone who has one knows that simply is not true. There are a lot of great indie titles for the platform, like Shovel Knight, Darkest Dungeon and so on. There are so many amazing games for the Vita. but all of that software will only ever be discovered by the people who already own the handheld. There are no true system sellers. No game that would make you buy the console just to be able to play it (like we've seen with the Nintendo Switch and Zelda: Breath of the Wild).
Yes, the Vita does have Killzone: Mercenary (which is - if I remember correctly a launch title) which is the best selling game of the platform. Other games like Don't Starve, Minecraft, Uncharted: The Golden Abyss have done impressive numbers, especially when you consider how many own a Vita. But Sony still did not manage to create that one game. Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified tried but it turned out to be terrible. Assassins Creed 3: Liberation also failed. I'm not saying that any of these games are bad (both sold quite a few copies), I'm just saying that they did not manage to become system sellers. Not a single Vita game has become a bona fide phenomenon, and that would have been necessary of Sony actually wanted the Vita to become a hit like the 3DS.
The PS4 could have been the Vita's salvation. The Remote Play function was quite impressive and at some point, Sony bundled the Vita and the PS4 together to get the Vita into more people's hands, but that did not solve the problem. Remote Play was practical and it worked great even with an older platform like the PS3, but it confined you to your own home network, despite the fact that many wished for it to allow you to play worldwide. Cross-buy was also an interesting idea. Sony tried to make more games available to the Vita, which would have probably boosted sales if it launched earlier in its life-cycle.
In Japan, the Vita has been more or less a success with constant sales since launch. Games are still developed and released in Japan and some are even brought over to the West. God Eater 2: Rage Burst from 2015 is a good example. It is the first Vita game to outsell its PSP counterpart. And more games pop up in Japan but never make their way over here.
The PlayStation Vita TV was an interesting attempt to bring Vita games to more people, but not all games were compatible and it lacked many features of other TV boxes (like... seriously it had no Netflix, no Spotify, no Prime Video - It only had a rudimentary Music Player and a really basic internet browser). Even its release in the west did not help.
At the end of the day, indisputably poor sales aside, the Vita may be partially suffering from an optics problem. If no one you know owns one, why would you make the leap? If everyone on the internet is calling it a failure, why take the chance to buy your own? Some of these issues Sony made for itself - such as requiring to use still-heinously expensive proprietary memory cards - but in reality, it is hard to wage an already-uphill battle when prevailing forces always seem to be working against you.
Drinkbox' Studios Chris McQuinn (developer of Guacamelee, Severed, Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack) acknowledged the bad reputation of the Vita in an interview.
It's probably a pretty sad sight, a small slice of shelf space with a handful of ancient retail games, a few overpriced memory cards, and accessories like power docks or carrying cases that aren't even compatible with the currently available hardware (that's if they actually have any systems to sell). Maybe there's a copy of Minecraft or a newish Japanese RPG of minor repute.
Whatever is there, it isn't going to sell anyone on a $200 investment. Instead, it's going to reinforce perceptions that the Vita is a deeply unpopular system with a desperate shortage of interesting games.
Changing that perception would have required big-name retail games from mainstream franchises, and both Sony and its third-party partners have made clear they have no taste for such an endeavour. The best Sony could possibly be hoping for is that Remote Play functionality with PS4 games takes off and the Vita shelf space can quietly be folded into the PS4 accessory shelf space.
As it stands, the Vita hardware has more than enough horsepower to run most indie games. Given that most of the envelope-pushing in indie games is done on a thematic level rather than a technical one, that should hold true for some time. And since there will be no AAA publishers on the Vita demanding a faster, better, more expensive version of the handheld, Sony won't be in a hurry to roll out a next-gen piece of kit, either.
So small developers get a platform capable of showcasing their best efforts, but without having to go up against the AAA competition of consoles or needing to stand out from the horde of new App Store efforts. They also get a platform with multiple release windows: original launch, PlayStation Plus giveaway, and (if it takes off) PlayStation Now streaming library title. Gamers get a well-designed piece of hardware with a diverse array of interesting games mostly free from AAA trends (for better or worse), all of which have passed Sony's certification and curation criteria. And Sony gets a cut of every sale and a chance to make back whatever money it sunk into its original PS Vita vision, not to mention a new market and the first sustainable niche console. It's a classic win/win/don't-lose-as-badly-as-everyone-thought scenario.
Sony more or less realized that at some point and in 2015 Sony UK's chief Fergal Gara even went as far as to declare that the Vita "has found its niche" as a specialist device and it was "enjoying robust and consistent sales".
Unfortunately, Sony hasn't put the Vita in the best position to capitalize on those revelations. If the focus is shifting away from major retail releases and toward downloadable ports, the system's memory cards can no longer be offered as an expensive luxury. They need to be cheaper. If Sony ever decides to release a new portable console it needs to ditch proprietary memory card form factors entirely. And if the system's niche is, as Gera said, a specialist device for a specialist audience, it should have been treated as such, not left to slowly fade away to uncertainty.
Then in 2011, Sony dropped the Vita. I still remember the enthusiasm: the PS Vita seemed like a worthy PSP successor. It almost had the power of a PS3 home console, while maintaining the form factor of the original PSP and adding a second thumbstick. Everything else (the OLED touchscreen, the rear trackpad and the 3G radio) was rather gimmicky (at least for me). Nevertheless, it was still on my list for Santa that Chrismas. That neither me not my friends got it that year (and for the record - not even later on) is a different story.
 |
| The Vita 1000 (left) and the Vita 2000 (right) (Source: CNET) |
The solid launch lineup really impressed me and I actually believed that it was going to be a huge success.
Regardless of the good hardware, great games and an enthusiastic fan base, the PS Vita quickly turned out to be one of the greatest commercial failures in recent gaming history.
To put that into perspective: it took mere weeks for the PS4 to sell more units than the Vita managed in more than 2 years. To date, the Vita managed to sell (keep in mind that we are in 2018 and the Vita launched in 2011) mere 10-15 million units. The Nintendo Switch, launched only last year, managed to sell about 20 million units. The PSP was sold 82 million times, the 3DS 73 million and the best selling portable console (the original DS), which also is the second best selling video game system, has sold 154 million units.
Compared to the 3DS (it's direct competitor), the Vita is a lot more powerful, as mentioned previously. As games like Killzone: Mercenary proved, it can even run a PS3 game engine without problems. The OLED screen of the first Vita model is gorgeous, although it was replaced on the second iteration with a less expensive LCD panel. Other features like the touchscreen and the second analogue stick were welcome improvements over the PSP - the proof that Sony can listen to gamer's feedback. Other features were more or less gimmicky, like the 3G functionality on the first model (which was removed on the later iteration because no one cared about it) and the rear touchpad - it was used only in a handful of games and it could not be removed from the system in a later iteration to lower the price a little bit.
 |
| The Vita 2000's marketing slide |
Of course, the hardware is not important at all (Nintendo has been getting away with low-end hardware since the GameBoy days - that ended with the Switch of course), because this is ultimately a gaming console. What matters are games. Huge games. Triple-A titles.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not one of those people who say that the Vita has no games - everyone who has one knows that simply is not true. There are a lot of great indie titles for the platform, like Shovel Knight, Darkest Dungeon and so on. There are so many amazing games for the Vita. but all of that software will only ever be discovered by the people who already own the handheld. There are no true system sellers. No game that would make you buy the console just to be able to play it (like we've seen with the Nintendo Switch and Zelda: Breath of the Wild).
Yes, the Vita does have Killzone: Mercenary (which is - if I remember correctly a launch title) which is the best selling game of the platform. Other games like Don't Starve, Minecraft, Uncharted: The Golden Abyss have done impressive numbers, especially when you consider how many own a Vita. But Sony still did not manage to create that one game. Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified tried but it turned out to be terrible. Assassins Creed 3: Liberation also failed. I'm not saying that any of these games are bad (both sold quite a few copies), I'm just saying that they did not manage to become system sellers. Not a single Vita game has become a bona fide phenomenon, and that would have been necessary of Sony actually wanted the Vita to become a hit like the 3DS.
 |
| A Vita 2000 and some game cartridges (Source: CNET) |
The PS4 could have been the Vita's salvation. The Remote Play function was quite impressive and at some point, Sony bundled the Vita and the PS4 together to get the Vita into more people's hands, but that did not solve the problem. Remote Play was practical and it worked great even with an older platform like the PS3, but it confined you to your own home network, despite the fact that many wished for it to allow you to play worldwide. Cross-buy was also an interesting idea. Sony tried to make more games available to the Vita, which would have probably boosted sales if it launched earlier in its life-cycle.
In Japan, the Vita has been more or less a success with constant sales since launch. Games are still developed and released in Japan and some are even brought over to the West. God Eater 2: Rage Burst from 2015 is a good example. It is the first Vita game to outsell its PSP counterpart. And more games pop up in Japan but never make their way over here.
The PlayStation Vita TV was an interesting attempt to bring Vita games to more people, but not all games were compatible and it lacked many features of other TV boxes (like... seriously it had no Netflix, no Spotify, no Prime Video - It only had a rudimentary Music Player and a really basic internet browser). Even its release in the west did not help.
At the end of the day, indisputably poor sales aside, the Vita may be partially suffering from an optics problem. If no one you know owns one, why would you make the leap? If everyone on the internet is calling it a failure, why take the chance to buy your own? Some of these issues Sony made for itself - such as requiring to use still-heinously expensive proprietary memory cards - but in reality, it is hard to wage an already-uphill battle when prevailing forces always seem to be working against you.
Drinkbox' Studios Chris McQuinn (developer of Guacamelee, Severed, Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack) acknowledged the bad reputation of the Vita in an interview.
"I think what people fail to understand is the purchasers of Vitas are very, very engaged game consumers. For them, the attach rate with games is very high. There might not be a lot of Vitas out there, but the people who do own Vitas are very serious consumers; they buy a lot of games." (Chris McQuinn, Drinkbox Studios)People just don't buy Vita stuff from retail stores anymore. If you go to any brick-and-mortar shop and look for a Vita section (assuming you find one, of course).
It's probably a pretty sad sight, a small slice of shelf space with a handful of ancient retail games, a few overpriced memory cards, and accessories like power docks or carrying cases that aren't even compatible with the currently available hardware (that's if they actually have any systems to sell). Maybe there's a copy of Minecraft or a newish Japanese RPG of minor repute.
Whatever is there, it isn't going to sell anyone on a $200 investment. Instead, it's going to reinforce perceptions that the Vita is a deeply unpopular system with a desperate shortage of interesting games.
Changing that perception would have required big-name retail games from mainstream franchises, and both Sony and its third-party partners have made clear they have no taste for such an endeavour. The best Sony could possibly be hoping for is that Remote Play functionality with PS4 games takes off and the Vita shelf space can quietly be folded into the PS4 accessory shelf space.
As it stands, the Vita hardware has more than enough horsepower to run most indie games. Given that most of the envelope-pushing in indie games is done on a thematic level rather than a technical one, that should hold true for some time. And since there will be no AAA publishers on the Vita demanding a faster, better, more expensive version of the handheld, Sony won't be in a hurry to roll out a next-gen piece of kit, either.
So small developers get a platform capable of showcasing their best efforts, but without having to go up against the AAA competition of consoles or needing to stand out from the horde of new App Store efforts. They also get a platform with multiple release windows: original launch, PlayStation Plus giveaway, and (if it takes off) PlayStation Now streaming library title. Gamers get a well-designed piece of hardware with a diverse array of interesting games mostly free from AAA trends (for better or worse), all of which have passed Sony's certification and curation criteria. And Sony gets a cut of every sale and a chance to make back whatever money it sunk into its original PS Vita vision, not to mention a new market and the first sustainable niche console. It's a classic win/win/don't-lose-as-badly-as-everyone-thought scenario.
Sony more or less realized that at some point and in 2015 Sony UK's chief Fergal Gara even went as far as to declare that the Vita "has found its niche" as a specialist device and it was "enjoying robust and consistent sales".
Unfortunately, Sony hasn't put the Vita in the best position to capitalize on those revelations. If the focus is shifting away from major retail releases and toward downloadable ports, the system's memory cards can no longer be offered as an expensive luxury. They need to be cheaper. If Sony ever decides to release a new portable console it needs to ditch proprietary memory card form factors entirely. And if the system's niche is, as Gera said, a specialist device for a specialist audience, it should have been treated as such, not left to slowly fade away to uncertainty.
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