March 12, 2019 Opinion Opinion
Choosing a name for the future heiress PSP, Sony Surely did not even know what fleshy bone they throw to reporters, fallen into obvious punses. “PS vita? I mean, PlayStation Life? And more like PlayStation Death! Oh-ho-ho, wit!".
Although, if without jokes, the shutdown of PS vita from the life support apparatus causes sadness rather than the desire to once again kick her lifeless frame. Because she died not from respectable old age in a circle of a loving family, but like a drunken carpenter with golden hands. Good person, skillful – but missing. Once a year it will dry out, sets the children of wooden toys, fix the fence of an old woman-neighbor … and again in an unlimited ruin. It seems to be a pity that the potential in a person is dying, but no one does nothing. Useless. It remains only to sit and look at the tragedy through the fingers.
Sony did so. Apparently from shame; as befits large corporations, the Japanese media giant does not love to publicly admit his mistakes. Because, no matter what pleasure the Internet lowers PS vita, there is only one reason for the failure of the console – negligence.
The day the earth stopped
Vita means "life"
Console announcement in 2011 made a lot of noise. The previous round of portable-console war Nintendo : as of 2019, Nintendo DS was considered the second (right for PS2) the best console in history, leaving PSP from Sony far behind. The new generation of iron loomed on the horizon. In February, Nintendo released the updated version of her bestseller – 3DS. And the industry was eager to see what Sony would answer and how she would try to recoup for the defeat PSP.
The company first presented the PS Vita on E3 2011 and from the threshold announced what exactly the emphasis is on: as always, on technology. Sony positioned its creation as a portable console of a "premium" class. As a universal, technologically advanced device on which you can do anything: at least Netflix look, at least the tape on Facebook leaf, at least … play if you suddenly want. The “filling” of the console was several times superior to (predictably) the filling of not only PSP, but also 3DS: in fact, PS Vita was a powerful portable console of its time. Two sticks, two cameras, two touchscreens, a high-quality OLED display-everything shouted directly about what all of herself was premium.
In the future, all this did not even look close or risky; The publisher for a reason focused the pre -release marketing of the console precisely on the "Iron" aspect. Since the release of PSP, a mobile gaming, which was once considered a second -rate substitute for the "full", has achieved unprecedented success. Angry Birds I captured the world as a toned plague, and the iPhone 4 shortly before E3 2011 entered the Guinness Book of Records as the fast -called portable gaming device, dispersing 1.5 million copies on the very first day.
In a word, the consoles had to compete with both Nintendo 3DS and the gadgets on iOS and Android, which were more and more every day. Therefore, Sony and pushed on technical chips: the audience of the changed market had to be convinced that PS vita is not only a stylish, high -tech accessory, but also the best device for gaming “on the go”.
So it is so, and without marketing tricks-if you have PS vita, I am sure that you agree that the console itself is really good. But Sony, either carried away by their own PR-renewal, or when he was calling how the industry works, did not take into account the main thing: why do people buy game consoles at all.
Igor is drowning
When, after the release in Japan, the Western branch of Sony introduced the starting line of PS Vita, the audience met it without much enthusiasm. By that time, the 3DS has already reached the reinteriority of the legendary Ocarina of Time , Super Mario 3D Land And Mario Kart 7 , received gorgeous assessments in the press. Series Monster Hunter After parting with PSP, I moved to the same way where I felt great and was actually one of the system systems. And against the backdrop of all this wealth, the relic selection of PS vita looked, to put it mildly, modestly: the only truly “serious” game in it was Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Well Wipeout 2048 , Although with a stretch – a widely known thing, but in narrow circles.
Critics praised the “Golden Abyss” for the fact that it gives experience comparable to UNCHARTED experience on PS3. If PS vita could boast of at least a couple of equally high -quality games, perhaps it would not have been waiting for her so sad fate
Everything else is ports ( Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 , Plants vs. Zombies ), slurred athletes ( Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational , EA Sports FIFA SOCCER ) and a very strange game like Michael Jackson the Experience. Plus reverse compatibility with part of the PSP games library, which, of course, is great, but does not sell PS vita as something revolutionary. Projects stated in the “release window”, that is, a little later, intrigued more ( Gravity rush , Assassin’s Creed: Liberation , Littlebigplanet ), but they still had to survive – at the start of the console there was no “fuel” for sales.
In short, Sony offered the public an extremely dubious deal and understood this perfectly. In an interview with Scott, a senior vice president of the International Department of Sony, the portal Gamasutra I directly asked why there was no big hype around the new console. And the clan, being a corporate employee, quite clumsily left the answer:
– I am firmly sure that as soon as people receive the console in their hands, what they will see and touch, will amaze them to the core. They will understand that they had not experienced anything like this before. This is what happened to those who have already managed to get acquainted with the console, and, I am sure that this positive will be conveyed by the mass audience, as soon as it looks at the product closer.
Ah, where the times disappeared when an athlete with a pleasant picture could be surprised by someone ..
I will not retell all the interviews, but such passages in it are found more than once. Mr. Rod constantly speaks of some surprising, breaking the whole framework of “Expirence” from PS vita. Say, he was so shocked by the quality of the baseball simulator MLB: The Show , that he personally walked and sorry for all involved in development – they made such a beautiful graphics! On the portable! Well, you can play on the go, and even save in the cloud! And all the Prive Casino sister sites spitens – Ty, do not be angry with them. They just did not understand how good Vita's “Expirence” is and what the platform is really capable of. Like, as soon as the consumer reveals his soul for this incredible high-tech revelation, everything will work out. You just need to wait until the mouth flows the good news from Sony.
The irony is that the publisher did not give this mouth at all any food. So that a person takes the console in his hands, he must have a good reason to buy it. And no matter how much Sony tried to promote PS vita as a gadget and, above all, an alternative to tablets and smartphones, it remains a game console. And the consoles are not sold on their own – they are sold games. Soft. He, in the end, brings the main array of profit in the long run. Without confident (uncharted) hints of a bright future, full of high -quality titles, Sony, in fact, shoved their brainchild under the slogan "Bazaar, good console, try, you still want". PS3 sold? Sold. PSP sold? Could and better, but sold. Why suddenly PS vita will not sell?
Photo from the start of sales of the platform in London. See how happy the buyer is! Truly, he knew the grace of PS vita and does not even suspect what kind of disaster he will turn
But the audience did not share the enthusiasm of the publisher-not only because of the lack of systems, but also because of the high price. PS vita basic set without taking into account the memory card cost $ 250. An ordinary Micro-SD card for 4 GB-$ 19.99 (!). A set with a built-in 3G module-all $ 300 or more. At the same time, Nintendo 3DS cost $ 170 thanks to the planned reduction in prices; Together with the Nintendo proposal already established by the Games library, it seemed an order of magnitude more profitable.
Funny fact: according to data VGCHARTZ, Even the old ATARI 2600 eventually saw a greater commercial success than PS vita. All numbers are given in millions
Sony took a year to smell something wrong. In February 2013, SCE Japan President Hiroshi Kavano publicly admitted that Vita sales volumes in his homeland do not reach the planned indicators, and therefore the publisher reduced the price of the product by exactly a third-despite the fact that the console was the cheapest in Japan. A similar attraction of unprecedented generosity reached Europe and the United States only in August – $ 199 instead of the old $ 250. But the damage was already inflicted: Sony reduced the console sales forecast by three million copies and suffered almost $ 3 billion losses. And the publisher accused of this – this is how a surprise! – weak sales of platforms and projects developed under it.
According to one of the site reports Statista, Reducing prices in the third quarter (Q3’13) really helped PS vita, but a sharp rise was followed by no less sharp decline. Obviously, one change in financial policy was not enough
"This path turned out to be a loop"
There really were problems with the profit from games. In the period from the start of sales to a decrease in retail value, all the titles came on the platform, by which it is now remembered. Terrible Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified , controversial (due to the reaction of the public to the third part) Assassin’s Creed Liberation, port Mortal Kombat , Killzone: Mercenary. And, despite the loud franchises, not one of these projects revealed the potential of the console; In isolation from PS vita, crafts turned out to be quite mediocre. On the other hand, reprints Persona 4: Golden And Final Fantasy X/X-2 Together with Little Big Planet, they earned the praise of critics, but they were not enough. Ten best-selling Titles for PS Vita are enormously inferior to the same ten for PSP, and the platform still did not have a powerful hit that would help to save it.
You know what has diverged into PS vita the largest circulation? Minecraft
Alas, by this moment Sony, despite all attempts to mitigate the damage caused, has already passed the point of irrevocation. Because the so -called feedback loop was formed around the platform.
I will explain. PS -vita project development is more expensive than developing, say, for Nintendo 3DS. Sony, as we have already found out, positioned the prefix as a premium class device – which means that games for it should be done at the appropriate level. With the disposal of all its technical advantages: two touchpads, an excellent display, gyroscope and computing power. In the end, the publisher did not lie: PS vita is really capable of issuing a wonderful picture, especially by the standards of portable devices.
The company itself could not allocate enough resources for stable support for the platform: PS4, the main dairy cow Sony, which had high hopes was about to get out. Therefore, they invited third -party developers smaller, so that they scored the platform for games – but not everyone agrees. Not everyone had enough experience or capital, so that without any support to give out a product of appropriate quality. In addition, seeing that the audience was not very interested in the console, small offices did not want to take a serious risk. Even if they had done something truly worthwhile, not the fact that their work would pay off.
Only imitators remained to settle down to the Monster Hunter competitors on the platform God Eater And Freedom Wars. Good games on their own, but to compare with the franchise, which made its name on PSP, they could not
In other words, developers do not want to make games due to a threat of losses, and players do not want to buy a console, because few games come out for her. And since the content drought reduces the interest of the audience in the platform, the studios do not want … and so on endlessly. A vicious circle that Sony drew with his own hands.
And nothing could tear him off. Neither the full turn of the PS vita and the transformation of the potentially best portable console into a device for PS4, nor the PlayStation Mobile initiative, which flooded the prefix with hundreds of third-rate mobile toys. All the publisher put up all those who were in the forefront are few. The only project that really beat the technical originality of the platform was a magical Tearaway (and otherwise Severed ), but she parted with a modest circulation of 650 thousand. copies. It’s good that they reprinted her on PS4 – it would be a pity to lose such work.
For some time, Sony actively promoted cross-platform purchases, like Resogun And HELLDIVERS : bought on one platform – play which is convenient. Alas, there are not so many diamonds in the mass of cross -platform indie, but you can delve into the list, for example, here
As a result, PS Vita was on the deathbed already in 2013-2014-after only two (three, if we count the Japanese release) of the year after the release. And Sony, for a second, was counted on a ten -year life cycle, as in the case of PSP. The system slowly faded, drowning in the ocean of useless games, until in 2015 the Vice President of SCE Masayasus, the Owls that the “home” studios of Sony cease the (not really started) support for the console to focus on the development of projects for PS4. For the library of the portable, let the third parties be blown.
And morality is simple: you need to be able to arrange the right priorities in time. Sony launched the life cycle of the product by gravity, focusing on the PS4, and when I realized, it was too late – there was no time or resources to correct the situation. So it turned out that the truly promising development turned out to be only a machine for indie games and emulators PSP/PS1.
And not that it was bad – now it really is full of high -quality projects, and so much that you can’t beat everything in everything. But … late. Late. And therefore it’s a shame.
Since 2015, Sony carefully pretended that PS vita did not exist, and mentioned it only in passing. Therefore, until the end of 2018, the prefix did not see more or less noticeable releases, not counting adaptations like Danganronpa. Dance spinoffs of the third and fifth Persona -Perhaps one of the last games of the AAA-Urals for the deceased console
Sony no longer plans to work in a portable direction, leaving Nintendo the only player in this market. And the solution is perhaps correct. The egregation of gaming on the "mobile", "portable" and others like them has already passed. The facets between the platforms and the experience that they offer are more and more blurred. Heavy 4x strategies go to the iPad, mobile games receive PC ports, board games work with companions or again on mobile and personal platforms ..
In the end, the “serious” consoles perform portable functions – thanks to Nintendo Switch. I am sure that if in the future Sony still decides to try themselves on the field of similar Vita devices, they will largely look back at the experience of Switch because it is deprived of all the problems that have destroyed PS vita. Heat system systems – there is. The permanent support of the publisher is. Unified quality standards for developers of all sizes – also. But, most importantly, Switch does not drive itself into any framework and does not attribute itself to either “serious” or portable ones – and this plays the platform into the hands.
And ps vita … what's wrong with her? I don't know, buy from someone, play in Persona 4: Golden , So far there is a chance. And after that you can also take up the classics of PSP/PS1 – the games are not new, but extremely worthy. Medievil , Vagrant Story , Parasite Eve. Or (only TS-S!) ask for it and play it in Doom (or Half-Life ) on the way to work.
And what games for PS vita have become your loved ones? You have a console? You will sell, or vice versa, look for where to purchase a copy?
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