PSVita (Successor to PSP, was PSP2 then NGP)

[J0e Musashi]

You need to switch it on in Auto-Start Settings.

[davek22]

Doh! Never occured to check settings. Cheers Joe

[saturn-gamer]

I see little reason to buy a racing sim on a handheld tbh. The same goes for CoD, why would you play that on a handheld. To play a non-laggy game you'll likely sit next to your router anyway.

That Ruin game sounded like it had potential. But where is it?

I love that you list Mario Kart and Pokemon and then lay not innovating as the damning quality of Sony.

Exactly.

Nintendo invented the party racing genre with Mario Kart. Sony copies with Modnation.
Nintendo came up with Wii mote, Sony copies with Move.
And now they'll come up with Sony Smash Bros.

I can go on, but Sony's lack of innovation is killing them for sure. Most they do is answering with inferior products. They weren't the ones coming up with Kinect, Wii, Live etc. It will be difficult for the Vita to find its audience, and with Ps4 just as much if they keep answering rather than innovating. Playstation brand took a hit, since pretty much their last 3 systems weren't as succesful as they hoped.

[cavalcade]

You're saying the Playstation and PS2 weren't as successful as Sony hoped? Really? Even the PS3 is now starting to kick Xbox in the chuckies across the world apart from the US. PSP was one of the most successful handhelds of all time, selling upwards of 70 million units (and still selling now). The PSP was hurt by piracy, but the PS3 still remains relatively secure compared to its two rivals.

Sony fund innovative and creative stuff the other two won't touch - Ico, SotC, Journey, MGS4, 3D Dot Heroes, Flower, Unfinished Swan, Pixeljunk Eden, Heavy Rain, Noby Noby Boy, Patapon, Loco Roco and Echochrome among others. I don't see anything like that from Nintendo. Modnation is hardly a copy of Mario Kart. It's based around the Play Create Share initiative as Little Big Planet was, both titles putting player content and creation at the core of the product. Once again I don't see an equivalent Nintendo product.

Move is a copy, of course, and it's been only mildly successful, but it's been good for core gamers who can pick up spruced up Wii ports without having to actually own a Wii. Of course Sony, like Microsoft, copy the other manufacturers from time to time, but that's natural. Nintendo are as guilty of doing the same.

I love the Vita. It's my most played console this year by a long way, and I can't see that changing. I think it has a great set of games now, and the promise of many more to come. If people are trading them in without hardly touching them then those people deserve contempt, not the system. It's like people who buy an iPad and then complain 3 weeks later that they don't have a need for it. I know it's hard for some people to understand in a consumerist society, but it's often better to decide whether you'll use a product BEFORE you buy it. I also have faith that Sony, based on their track record for the last 3 generations will bring innovative, exciting new games and portable versions of the bread and butter stuff that forms the gaming landscape at the moment.

[ItsThere]

Calvavade - good post. That is all.

[EvilBoris]

Thing is, every new system that comes out we have the same problems and they always take a while to gain traction.

Developers aim for launch day for some guarenteed sales, then after that they are just holding on for the unit sales to steadily increase before they launch to retail, thus maximising sales.

3DS to some extent is still in this phase, 360 had about 2 additional games worth buying after the initial launch titles for about 6

[saturn-gamer]

Ps3, PSP, Vita. I thought it was rather obvious.

Ps3 might sell better than the rest lately, but its too little and too late. The battle has been concluded for long now, Nintendo was the winner and MS made the biggest progress if you see where they came from with the original Xbox. Sony lost a lot of market share, money and goodwill. Everything they built with the Ps1 and Ps2 is gone. Its 6 years later now, Ps3 production (namely Cell, BR) cost Sony billions they won't ever retrieve. I don't believe anyone inside Sony can call this machine a success. They'll likely want to move on towards a Ps4 thats much more developer friendly, based on something more conventional than Cell and forget this generation. Thing is, MS has the momentum now and Nintendo might just find another sort of blue ocean or golden egg with the Wii U. I think Sony will either copy Kinect, or the Tablet.

PSP wasnt all that succesful. It managed to sell for periods after price reductions and revisions, and Monster Hunter alone carried it in Japan. Software sales were rather pathetic overall, namely in the west. Mainly b-studios were working on its software, its not anything close to how Nintendo handles this.

The difference between the Vita and the 3DS is that with the 3DS you knew that Nintendo would hit hard at some point. Ofcourse Mario, Zelda, Pokemon etc would come around and take the audience by storm. And for Vita? We did get that underwhelming Japan press event with PSO 2 and a few others. But absolutely no clue if God of War, Jak, GT etc will make its appearance and if it does... who's going to develop? Sony needs to go big during E3, or I'd start to worry.

[cavalcade]

Microsoft lost a billion in the red ring fiasco, and also has incurred staggering losses to bring the Xbox and 360 to market. Microsoft is lucky because it has the OS and Office divisions to keep the Entertainment bit going. Sony relies on a far more volatile entertainment and consumer electronics arm. That said it's apples and oranges whether Sony or Microsoft have chucked more money down the toilet trying to gain and hold a slice of the gaming market. Both have invested eye watering sums of money that I doubt either will ever get back.

I think it's fair to say Microsoft has innovated in some areas, and if it wasn't for Live then the gaming landscape would likely look very different. But recently Microsoft have lost serious ground, with very patchy 360 sales, a loss of focus on the core gaming demographic and a scattergun approach to software quality. While I think their strategy might have some lucrative avenues short term it's fair to say that when the next generation rolls around their hardware reputation and recent community "initiatives" (like dumping Inside Xbox and covering the dashboard in adverts) might come back to haunt them. I would strongly contest they have much momentum outside the US and the UK.

It's a fallacy that the PSP was a sales disaster on the hardware or software side. It was hammered by piracy, granted, but it had 17 titles that sold over 2 million. GTA:LCS sold over 7 million copies. And that's physical, and doesn't include downloads. It also had 51 titles that sold over a million. Not bad, along with the 70 million + hardware sales, and continuing strong sales in the Asia/Pacific region. Pretty good for a "failure".

[teddymeow]

"Failure"!? What a crock! 6 years in and selling better than your rival is pretty good gong. Hardware units were never going to be PS2 levels due to increased cost and other things vying for people's time like mobile games.

Vita will pick up momentum after E3 and the "2nd Gen" games start arriving.

[PaTaito]

Vita is great......really great, couple of must haves and everything in the garden will be rosy.

Just like 3ds with mario kart 21....rather i mean "the innovative mario kart 7!"

I honestly shudder to imagine how the japanese would lap up a visually spectacular monster hunter on vita.

[SUMIRE]

I think the Vita is the perfect handheld, it already has some great games, plus you have access to most of the PSP back catalogue and there is a shed load of awesome titles there. I love my 3DS, love the 3D, it still amazes me how it works, but the hardware design is horrible, I really hope they improve it in the future!

[Dogg Thang]

I just like handhelds. That is all.

[saturn-gamer]

MS mainly lost a lot of cash because they had to enter a market that was new for them and had to quickly gain ground in order not to fade away. The RROD was stupid, but the headstart they got was vital to gain a lead on Sony. When Ps3 came around it couldn't offer much more than the 360 did for a year and at a lower price, most third party software was even inferior on Ps3. I believe the 360 division has been profitable for about 5 years now. They really did do a better job than Sony did.

Outside of the US and UK the 360 is in less demand. But the console did see a lot of growth in those markets when compared to the original Xbox. What MS does very well is that the 360 is being seen as more than a gaming machine in the US. Its also those peoples multimedia device of choice. MS screwed up by not bringing lots of those services abroad, you can't do as much with the machine in Europe.

Vita is great......really great, couple of must haves and everything in the garden will be rosy.

Just like 3ds with mario kart 21....rather i mean "the innovative mario kart 7!"

I honestly shudder to imagine how the japanese would lap up a visually spectacular monster hunter on vita.

Except that it will appear on 3DS and sell bucketloads. Which means Capcom isn't going to bother wasting resources on a Vita version with better graphics and dual stick controls.

[Team Andromeda]

PSP wasnt all that succesful. It managed to sell for periods after price reductions and revisions, and Monster Hunter alone carried it in Japan. Software sales were rather pathetic overall, namely in the west. Mainly b-studios were working on its software, its not anything close to how Nintendo handles this.

The difference between the Vita and the 3DS is that with the 3DS you knew that Nintendo would hit hard at some point. Ofcourse Mario, Zelda, Pokemon etc would come around and take the audience by storm. And for Vita? We did get that underwhelming Japan press event with PSO 2 and a few others. But absolutely no clue if God of War, Jak, GT etc will make its appearance and if it does... who's going to develop? Sony needs to go big during E3, or I'd start to worry.

Dear God Mate how on earth can you make out that consoles that sell over 40 million each aren't successful?. The PSP was a great seller for SONY and still does great business in Japan and I expect when Monster Hunter hits the Vita, sales of that will kick in to life (people seem to look over the 3DS poor sales and poor line up early in)

I expect the PS3 is making money for SONY now (its other divisions that are costing it) and the PS3 won SONY the dsic battle - which in the long term is going to pay off as I see no alternative to BluRay at all

[DeathAdder]

I think the PSP was a success but nevertheless a disappointment for SONY. I bet they expected their track record of wiping the floor with the opposition with PS and PS2 to continue. Nobody knew the market would become so much bigger, I suppose, and having a large part of that much market is a great thing, but their smugness bubble certainly burst.