Sony Having A Tough Time Recruiting Third-Party Vita Support

Not surprising, with handheld gaming gone to weaker undedicated platforms and the sky high costs of development it probably doesn't seem worth their while to develop their games on yet another machine.

Queue the shovelware occasionally interrupted by big exclusives.

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If sony threw in an 8GB card and opened it up for people to develop for it as they do with the iPod, it might have a chance at giving Apple a run for its money. It might never happen but that is an option Sony has. I mean they already ditched the possibility of having a mobile entertainment center when they decided to not give it tv out. And don't pretend like it wouldn't have been nice to be able to hook it up to a tv pair up a dualshock or even the bd remote to watch a movie or a tv show or play a videogame whilst traveling (at least for those who like to purchase tv shows or movies from the PSStore.

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Yeah it's pretty tough indeed, however, I think the major issue sadly is the price of the little guy. It's pretty high for just the average consumer to buy. If they lowered it a bit maybe it would grab attention of more folks thus creating a market for third party devs to start throwing some games out there. Not everyone can just throw out 250 to 300 bucks for one of these handhelds in addition to snatching up the expensive memory cards. :\

Though I do enjoy my Vita very much, bring on Persona 4 Golden already!!!

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iPods, iPhones and iPads should be too expensive for the average consumer as well. But that doesn't stop those products from moving. $250 is absolutely a steal for hardware like the Vita. I say its real problems are elsewhere.

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The real problem is elsewhere to be found indeed, Temjin.

Price cut is a proven tool to fix a lot of problems, but I do not think it is a strong enough antidote to remedy the problem in this case.
Vita is the wrong product at the wrong time. I know I sound like a broken record now but it is as simple as that, and very, very unfortunate for Sony.

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Last edited by Beamboom on 8/10/2012 11:11:01 AM

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Yes but do you know what the iPod iPhone and iPad all have in common? Besides tv out, and what seems to be an unlimited amount of support from "developers". They have at least 8GBs of memory. Which vita doesn't have. Sony could easily include an 8GB card and not drop down the price. Or at least give a nice discount for buying both.

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Caesar the cheapest iPod touch is $200. It has at least $100 less features and definitely doesn't have the same Calibur of quality games. The Vita's problems appear to me as problems concerning a changing market landscape and not hardware that's asking too much. I'm sure Sony isn't making a penny or much more on each vita sold.

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It's really 3 main problems holding the Vita back, the price to purchase the handheld itself, very little AAA games atm, and once again sony decided to not make it backwards compatable ( yes I know u can play digital copies, but you cant play UMDs, so thats a NO for BC ).

I honestly think it's the BC and the no games that is killing the vita, which is sad because it's a great little machine, but with the problems it has, I have no intrest in paying $350 for a vita + 32g card.

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Every time I read the lack of games reason I recall the first year of near every console launch. And with the exception of few, most new consoles always suffer a first year drought. I remember 360 had mostly mediocre half-next gen games for its first year, Gears being the first biggie. People have blasted every Sony console in memory for its first year gaming line up. Vita's follow up software doesn't look particularly well paced but the quantity of first year titles that rate in the 8+ range appear higher than most systems preceding it, especially in comparison to its predecessor the PSP, where Lumines was its strongest rated title for a while.

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Exactly Temjin, it went on for quite awhile for especially the PS2. This is nothing new at all. The Vita has had one of the strongest launches for a console in terms of games in my opinion. Just because it's been a few months and 10 more huge games haven't come out I don't see the health of the console as a problem.

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yeah, Smokey. It's just one of those things inherent with being an early adopter. It was true of Blu Ray, DVD's, CD's or anything I can think of. Those who are most excited will want it right away, hopefully knowing they'll have a limited selection, and others who want to let it bake up more and get it later have that option. There's no need for people to start claiming it's death and drastic need for a price drop and lament the terrible game line up.

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And yet, the Vita lacks that MUST HAVE game to help boost sales like many other consoles and handhelds have had. You may think the current games on it are amazing, but sales certainly disagree with you. And again, no BC is really going to hurt, unless people wanna pay to get a digital copy of thier umd favs.


I'm sure sales will pick up a bit when they announce some AAA titles like Monster Hunter/FF.

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Last edited by Phoenix on 8/11/2012 1:46:32 AM

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Obviously for us adopters the price isn't an issue. However, for a lot gamers the price is an issue. The $250 is not a bad price considering how incredible the hardware is. The real problems is the memory cards. No one wants to spend extra on the memory cards. All of this won't matter when more killer games/apps are released on the Vita.

I find myself missing a true web browser. It needs flash bad.

As far as the games go I think all the games that are available are very good. I am so anxious to see how the Vita explodes with positive news in the next couple of months!!

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Flash I think will become less and less of a problem as the internet moves further away from it but the browser definitely needs work. It would be great if it had essentially Chrome, which also doesn't support flash but at least it would be much more capable.

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There releasing AC vita right beside AC3 that won't just overshadow it, it will eclipse it

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The key to making this thing a success is going to be adding support for PS1 and PS2 classics and somehow letting people take PS3 PSN games on the go. It just needs more compatibility and a price drop.

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It's a different market today than it was 6-7 years ago with PSP's launch. Portable game consoles used to be the only way to get access to games on the go. Now with price of smart phones coming down and better offerings for iPhone and Android games, Sony has to rethink their price model. Why would someone purchase a Vita for $250 or more when they could get the latest Android or iPhone that both plays games and makes phone calls for $200 or less?

In order for the Vita to take off, it needs a game like Call of Duty to push sales along with a sub $200 price. In order for Vita to do well it has to drop below the impulse purchase price or offer something that gamers want. It needs to do something that my phone can't do, like full remote play of my PS3 games. Downloads and Discs.

Sony should offer a limited time sale when Call of Duty launches - of course "while supplies last". A PS Vita bundled with Call of Duty for $199. Do this and watch them fly off the shelves.

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PSP, best handheld ever. I still have too many games to play on the PSP before I would even consider the Vita. I recently hacked my PSP and added emulators for NES,SNES,NEO GEO, and Genesis...best system ever. BTW, I don't steal PSP games.

Now, if only Square-Enix would get off their ass and port FF Type-0

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If only SONY could slash the SDK price and I'm sure the Indies would develop for it. That's better than no games.

Also, stop stealing with those memory card prices. A total rip off.

I would buy one if they made a model with a removable batery. Integrated battery = No sale.

The Vita price is ok. It is a nice machine, it's the previous issues that keep me from buying one.

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third party?
really?
the vitas had heaps of third party support, its first party where improvement is needed!
how many first party vita games are on the horizon?
LBP, killzone, the SSMB wannabee, thats all i can think of.
3 games!
THREE!
christ, even the ps3 has more games than that!

$ony REALLY needs to get some of their developers working with the vita!
id love to see $ony bend studio do syphon filter 4 for both the vita and ps4!
they REALLY should expand that studio there such a tallanted studio, in fact they actually did allot of things better with golden abyss than what ND have done with the uncharted franchise!
ive always been a big fan of $ony bend studio, so i wish they would expand the studio so they could work on 2 projects at once!
one syphon filter 4 and the other another uncharted, exactly the same as what golden abyss was!
they need to get insomniac back on the resistance franchise too and bring resistance to the vita!
burning skies was a burning piece of sh*t!
resistance, and the vita, deserve better than that!

thats what pisses me off the most about the vita.
$ony has SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many awesome talented studios, but 0.00000000000001% of them are actually working with the vita!
one thing ive always hated about $ony, there 10000000 times thicker than a mule!
the psp was let down by its first party support, it would of done so much better if $ony actually put more of their studios on it!
they admitted that mistake, and swore to rectify it with the vita.
well.............
WERE WAITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and it looks like we will be till cats learn to fly, pigs learn to break dance, and valve finally comes out and admits there never was a half life 3 they just loved trolling their fans!

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