An anonymous quote from Japan's Nikkei newspaper paints a bleak picture for the future of the PlayStation Vita, but Scott Rohde, Sony's senior vice president of Worldwide Studios, rebuts.
The PlayStation Vita has failed to catch fire in the Japanese marketplace since its December launch -- being routinely beaten in weekly sales by its predecessor, the PSP, which is still popular there, as well as Nintendo's 3DS.
In a story that went up on Nikkei's website today, written by Kiyoshi Shin, former head of Japan's IGDA branch, an unnamed source from the Japanese game industry says that "Major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS."
"I did not see that quote, but you see extremist quotes like that all the time," says Rohde, who spoke to Gamasutra about the incipient launch of the Vita in North America.
"I mean, obviously, there is no way anyone could stand in front of a camera and say that all developers are changing focus from one platform to another, no matter what it is."
Rohde went on to say that his guess is that it's "largely exaggerated. I know many, many, many third party developers and publishers are feverishly working on Vita titles, not just for now, but for the foreseeable future."
It might not be literally true, but does it hint at a real trend? "No, I absolutely haven't heard," says Rohde.
"There's always going to be the hot platform of the moment in our industry," he says. "There's always going to be reason to talk about a story like that."
"You can, whatever -- rewind two years ago. Every developer was you knew was selling -- going towards -- I was going to say 'selling their soul', it almost came out -- to go build games for Zynga and the Facebook platform. And there's another time when you see everyone is going to do smaller iPad games, or iOS games in general. Then it was PS3, it was 360, it's Vita, it's 3ds. It's always, constantly changing. It's not something that concerns me whatsoever."
The full interview with Rohde, which contains his thoughts on the Vita's launch and future, and major competitors Apple and Nintendo, will be live on Gamasutra next week.
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Still, just look at the release schedule for the rest of the year for the PS3 (or 360), then look at the Vita's. Even though the Vita can supposedly handle games of similar quality (if somewhat worse), it's virtually getting none of those games (basically Madden, as near as I can tell).
Sony should have taken some of that $50 million they are going to spend on terrible ads and used it to secure games.
edit: I realise you're not necessarily suggesting that it's a system seller.
And you don't have any clue what Gravity Rush is, do you? It's a full 3D open world Action/RPG with amazing graphics, a unique art style, and the ability to manipulate gravity to walk on walls and fly through the air. It's nothing remotely like something you'd see on a flash game.
Wipeout,
Unit 13,
Call of Duty,
not to mention FIFA alone will sell like crazy in Europe.
This system will the the defacto standard QUALITY for portal game. which is good I'm so sick of these crap games on iPad being heralded as modern marvels. 90% of game on iPad are crap. The reason that Apple does so well is because. a lot of people are will to take a risk on a game for $0.99-$6.99 I have literally bought prolly 60 or more games for iPhone and iPad. and 95% are crap!
but that doesn't mean developers are going to abandon their current projects. Besides time is require to develop new game and functions that can take advantage of this new piece of hardware. I say give it a little time. I doubt 3DS is that popular, maybe only in JP.
That says nothing for the vitas prospects in the west though and also give it another 6 months before declaring the death knell but initial sales in japan are extremely weak.
I am sure this won't happen (already sold at a loss) and I am sure, it won't change a thing, it's software selling hardware and the Vita has no system selling software in sight.
There was virtually no software for the Vita at launch in Japan, which is presumably why it did bad. But the US launch lineup has several games that are getting rave reviews, and others which range from good to great.
Reviewers liked the PSP launch titles as well and they literary hated the DS launch titles
just take a look at hte PSP scores on Metacritic:
Ridge Racer 88
Wipeout Pure 88
Tony Hawks Underground 2 Remix 83
Lumines 89
Metal Gear Acid 75
There were several titles with a lower score, but the ammount of games with a good score was much bigger, then on the Nintendo DS. The only DS game, that achieved a score of 85 was Super Mario DS, the other games were rated much lower:
Feel the Magic XY/XX 75
Madden NFL 2005 68
The Urbz: Sims in the City 67
Spider-Man 2 61
Asphalt: Urban GT 60
The next game with a score over 80, that Metacritic lists is Wario Ware touched, which was released 3 months after the launch of the system. The other games go down to scores like 48 (Sprung) or even 28 (Ping Pals).
For the DS first 12 months, Metacritic lists 16 titles with a score above 75 (it's 18, but 3 are the different Nintendogs variants), but for the first 12 months of the PSP, Metacritic lists 29 titles with a score above 75.
The DS constantly outsold the PSP, so it seems, review scores aren't connected to the commercial success of a console.
anyways, we all know for any console to be sold well, strong IP is definitely needed. I will pick up a vita over 3ds any time, but like most gamer I am waiting to see the library line up before I jump in. so if any one here is a psv developer, show me something good and I will jump in right away!
personal opinion, I still think 3ds are for gamer with less demand of entertainment .
But then I went and exchanged it and so far no problems with the new one.
I only mention this because I really like my 3DS too. However after playing with the Vita for a few hours, when I now try to play the 3DS, it really does seem like a low budget toy in every respect. Screen size, graphics, you pretty much name it, the Vita is a MUCH better experience and is replacing the 3DS for my commute.
The only thing that MIGHT get me to open the 3DS again is depending on how much I miss Mario Kart. I'd pay $200 for Mario Kart on the Vita and then never touch my 3DS again.
Roll out Netflix and roll out Skype and this thing is gunna be awesome.
Keep in mind this is unsubstantiated (for now) since we're hearing it from an unnamed source whose only verified credential (for now) is knowing a member of the Japanese IGDA. Granted sales haven't been hot in Japan, but I highly doubt that Japanese companies would stop development now before they see what sales are like in foreign markets when the Vita releases worldwide over the next few weeks.
It was the PS3 at some point? Maybe I was still overseas when that was going on.
Vita games can be basically ported to PS3 or vice-versa to an extent. The assets used in development between console games, downloadable titles avaliable on PSN, Steam can also be done to vita. Games like Rayman origins in avaliable in Vita too. Why would they alienate Vita? In fact I think opposite.
The Vita runs at a lower resolution, than the PS3, which means, textures have to be downscaled, which normally does look terrible or have to be drawn again, which costs a lot of money.
Apart from this, I don't know, if Vita's CPU can match the cell processor.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39842/PSN_dev_Drinkbox_Studios_on_ porting_cod
e_to_miniPS3_quality_Vita_hardware.php
It's odd he says the vita has about 1/2 the video memory..But the systems total is 512ram.
As far as truley easy porting of AAA quality graphic ps3 titles idk. I can say the uncharted game looks better than any hand held title i've seen on any platform.
IMO Sony need a new dedicated Vita Monster Hunter game to be a bigger player in japan & maybe a good port of Skyrim for the NA/euro markets.
I tend to think short term there won't be a problem with having developers signed on, but trying to get them to actively develope games may be.
Short and mid term the Vita's worst enemy is its price. Long term may be its developement costs.
Vita has nothing like that ATM.
I think most people interested in backwards compability are interested in a) using their own games on a new system or b) are interested in building up a software library from the previous generation, by buying used games, because it's a cheap way to get a big library.
The passport system would at least help existing PSP owners with some games (the number of passport games in the japanese PSN store is rather small).
Let's be clear on this: Sony recognizes the value of BC. That's why they want to charge you for it. In fact they're so sure it's valuable they're charging you for it even though their competitors don't.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/40336/Survey_suggests_rough_financial_climate
_for_Japanese_developers.php
Almodt 50% (!) of Japanese game developers lost money last year. This is in a country where the PSP was the most successful, both with consumers and for game developers. Most of these companies were making [profitable] PSP games for the local Japanese market.
So the rather pointed question to Sony is this. If what you are saying is true, why is it that so many of the most experienced PSP game developers on Earth cannot get Vita contracts?