I bought my Vita at launch and have been really enjoying it. The buttons feel great and the display looks crystal clear, and being able to play slightly up-rezzed PSP games I overlooked is really awesome. The launch line-up was strong and there's still quite a few good games coming in the next year or so (Gravity Rush, Persona 4, Bioshock Vita, etc), but what happens after that? It seems like every week the system is selling at record lows (recently quadruple digits in Japan I believe?). I doubt the Vita will be very enticing for third party development with such a small audience to sell too if the system doesn't start selling sooner. The biggest chance for it to succeed would be for the Vita version of Call of Duty to do well, but that doesn't really do much to help Japanese sales and in turn Japanese development. Am I being overly paranoid or does the Vita future seem a bit bleak?

I thought it seemed like a bad idea from the get go, but I wouldn't give up hope yet. They'll drop the price at some point and I would expect some titles to be announced at E3 that will make it worth owning to some people.

Wait a full year before we go all doom and gloom on the thing. Looking at the 3DS, people thought Nintendo handhelds were done but it's selling great now. I have both a Vita and a 3DS and both are, in my opinion, better than their predecessors.

Seems like a repeat of the PSP. That turned out ok, though.

Give it a year, hopefully some great games comes along by that time =)

remember the 1st year of the 3DS?

Eventually it'll drop in price and sales will pick up again, much like the 3DS.

I don't know if paranoid is the right word. Uncertain seems more fitting. I use my Vita on a daily bases to listen to podcasts, look up something quick online, and to watch the occasional netflix video. I have gotten my moneys worth out of the system, and if it doesn't sell, oh well, I've had fun with it. Sony's future on the whole is looking beak, and I wouldn't be surprised if the PS4 (or equivalent) is the last we see from Sony video game hardware. I can easily see them going the Sega route of just publishing.

What future?

It's hard to predict so soon, especially given what happened with the 3DS. Sure the market is smaller with vita, but that doesn't mean 3rd parties will flat out abandon the system, we shall see. If this thing just puts out portable versions of PS3 games, I'd be fine with that.

I think a better question is will Sony be around long enough to make the system worthwhile. The company has lost over a billion dollars a year every year since 2008. For most companies it would be game over at that point, but Sony is a hard beast to put down. Even with their vast resources, they can't survive at this pace for more than another year or two. They are going to have to make massive cuts across the board if they want to last and every product that isn't earning money is going to have to be on the chopping block, and that includes previously safe bets like TV's and video games. If the Vita isn't profitable for them by this time next year then I bet they cut it. With the PS3 they had the reserves to hold their ground until the system turned around. They don't have billions lying around anymore though and they can't afford to wait three years for profits. They are going to have one chance to turn this around - This holiday season. If they can't get people to buy it for this Christmas then I highly doubt it will be around for the next one.

I hate to be "that guy" but I'm not going to give the Vita a second thought 'till it reaches a certain level of success. I jumped on the PSP bandwagon pretty early on, but all 3rd party pretty much abandoned it within the first year. Homebrew was the only solace I had on the platform.

The Vita looks like it's set to fail for the same reasons the PSP did, and pirating was NOT the reason the PSP failed (although it was a total dick move on the community's part) Show me a PS3 game that I can continue the main story-line on the go with my Vita, and I'm in. Hell, make that the primary goal of the Vita; a kind of accessory for the PS3. Oh, and MARK DOWN THE PRICE.

I'm not saying forego all original content for the Vita, by the way, but no one is putting their AAA games on a platform with no users, so sell it as an "accessory," that way you can easily just port stuff over to it, you now have a AAA library, you'll get some users, THEN make original content.

How would Bioshock Vita work?

Whilst it may never reach great heights, I am sure it will still reach a decent level of success. Still, I am not buying one until the price significantly drops - 1 to 2 years from now,

@Koolkirby: I have the exact feelings about the Vita's future. I received mine as a gift from my wife at launch and love it. I get a little worried that developers will shy away from the platform especially when you look at the sales figures for the Vita and 3DS, especially in Japan. Hopefully they will pick up, the Vita is too nice of a system to die an early death.

Wail until E3.

@bighat_logan said:

remember the 1st year of the 3DS?

This.

Everything will be just fine.

Playstation Vita and Playstation 4 (yes, four), should support 100% of titles with remote play.

Sony obviously has trouble with selling brand value with all of their products (quite literally, phones, TVs, and cameras), except for Playstation 3, and likely Playstation 4. If Sony wants to really capitalize on their brand power then extend the value and combine the products into a seamless experience in the future.

By the time Playstation 4 arrives, the PS Vita should be at a more reasonable price. 249.99 USD is not a bad price, but it's not a great one either.

And heck, get an Android App for the phones that integrates with these devices for crying out loud.

I wouldn't write the Vita off yet. For starters, Sony didn't spend a whole lot of money developing custom parts for it - it's mostly stuff already mass produced for the pads and phones, so they can afford give it a price cut without taking too much of a hit. Then they have a track record for supporting and turning around the PS3, in spite of a bad launch. That will make devs more confident in the platform and willing to risk supporting it.

Also there's PlayStation Suite, which offers a cheap and easy way to port less demanding games to Vita and PlayStation certified Android devices. Given that Android gaming is struggling with piracy and wildly diverging software and hardware, the Suite could potentially give Sony a central place on the platform, and the Vita will benefit significantly.

The only hope for the system is making the Vita integral to the PS4. Namely the PS4's gamepad being a stripped down Vita (sans processing power and 'a more gamepad' formfactor), akin to the WiiU-tablet, and every PS4 owner can play VITA games on his PS4 gamepad/tablet (streaming the game wirelessly onto the controller/tablet from the PS4 - just like the WiiU does).

@bighat_logan said:

remember the 1st year of the 3DS?

It will be fine.

I just want psx support and homebrew emulators on that big screen.

@kurtbro900 said:

Seems like a repeat of the PSP. That turned out ok, though.

Nintendo still has the name recognition on the handheld market, but there are more than a few things working against Sony. Still, if it does as well as the PSP, you'd have to call that a win. If software numbers do better than the PSP did, though, that would truly make a difference. I think there is still plenty of time since this is post-launch blues, but if Sony doesn't do solid numbers in software this time around, nobody will be back for round three.

Not that I expect to see a round three for most of the handhelds out there. Sony, overall, has an issue with finding their place in the market, and super-powered hardware just isn't profitable.

I bet the price will drop significantly, probably during the holiday season.

It's taking me a long time to learn it, but buying handhelds is just a losing proposition,no matter how much I love scribblenauts and Layton. We just live in an era where it takes too much money to make " spectacle" games and who in the world wants to view spectacle through a tiny device and screen? It makes no sense. For a handheld, I want small, fun, creative games with a long play-life. The vita is the opposite of that.

I'm pretty sure it will do fine, just give it some time. Like a year, maybe e3 will have some big stuff.

That's why I haven't picked it up yet...

@bighat_logan said:

remember the 1st year of the 3DS?

Yeah, it just needs a good holiday sale, & that new Dragons Crown game looks pretty sweet coming next year.

And if it's anything, I live in NY, & while taking the train i've seen more Vita's then 3DS's if that's anything to bring your sprits up.

I love my Vita too, Rayman is so fucking perfect for it.

I don't know if giving vita time is a factor. There's a very small window for new devices to catch on. Longer for established manufacturers. If it doesn't catch, publishers move on to what they know will make money.

they just need to release every PS1 and PS2 game on the store and I would buy this thing in a instant.

I'm not worried: I've always had the utmost faith in Sony's ability to fuck something up, and they have rarely disappointed post-PS2.

@Tophat666 said:

@bighat_logan said:

remember the 1st year of the 3DS?

Yeah, it just needs a good holiday sale, & that new Dragons Crown game looks pretty sweet coming next year.

And if it's anything, I live in NY, & while taking the train i've seen more Vita's then 3DS's if that's anything to bring your sprits up.

I love my Vita too, Rayman is so fucking perfect for it.

I don't even live in a heavily populated area and I see a lot of people popping up on near. Sure, those numbers could be a lot higher given how far of a reach that thing can give you, but I was surprised to see a few in the wild. Oddly enough, one owner was a teenage Asian girl. Glad to see female gamers exist on non-Nintendo portable platforms.

I bought my PSP used and I spent 90% of my use on it watching videos.  I wouldn't trust a sony handheld to have a nice selection of games.

Just wait until they release a Monster Hunter game in Japan on the PSV. The system will fly off store shelves.

I'm getting my Vita next month and I can not fucking wait. Gonna plays me some baseball on the go.

Handhelds are dead.

@devilzrule27: Perhaps not. I'm not into Monster Hunter but I read that the 3DS Monster Hunter that came out last year in Japan sold 1 million, and they've announced 4 for 3DS, which will sell even more. While a Vita game is supposedly in the works, who knows if the Vita game would sell as well this generation, considering that the series in no longer an exclusive like it was in the time of the PSP/DS. Then again, it's Monster Hunter. I'm sure it will do fine regardless.

@Jimi said:

I just want psx support and homebrew emulators on that big screen.

The day homebrew finds it's way to the Vita, you can put a fork in it.

To be honest, I thought thing seemed dire enough for the Vita when it was announced. Sony just doesn't seem to commit or even understand the handheld market. It's trying to cram in the functions of a tablet, smart phone and console in one and not being particularily good at either.

At least the 3DS is focusing on being a handheld gaming device and everything else is gravy. Plus Nintendo are sitting on a slew of properties that fit perfectly for a handheld device. Uncharted: Golden Abyss proved once again that Sony are just trying to squeeze what's meant for a big screen into their tiny device. A criticism that was levied at the PSP numerous times.

I don't think we have anything to worry about, but if E3 rolls by and nothing significant is announced then we worry.

As for Sony financially, the fact that the former video game chief is running all of Sony should show Sony has more faith in the video game business then the rest. Sony won't go away but I can see it shaving fat off, either by shutting down divisions or spinning them off. Video games may become a primary focus for Sony, turning it into something closer to Nintendo.

Im not worried. The success of the handheld in its second xmas (first xmas in the west) will be a better test.

They need a strong holiday season, strong holiday season needs strong games. I expect Sony's E3 press conference this year to be heavily Vita focused.

I always thought the PSP platform (PSP, PSP Go, Vita) seemed like it was a tricky idea to pull off. Nintendo has such a death grip on portable gaming and with iPhone and Android games becoming better in quality, Sony is kinda stuck in a weird situation.

I'm interested in the Vita, but I'm actually avoiding it purely because of SCEE.

Sony do not care about Europe, PSN is horrible over here and is very lightly supported... so not much chance of content on PSN.

@devilzrule27 said:

Just wait until they release a Monster Hunter game in Japan on the PSV. The system will fly off store shelves.

I'm getting my Vita next month and I can not fucking wait. Gonna plays me some baseball on the go.

But is this going to happen? Monster Hunter has never appeared on the 360 or PS3, because the PSP is very cheap and easy to develop for, as opposed to making really fancy and expensive console games. The Vita is almost as powerful as the current gen systems, if you're going to develop a Vita game, it may as well be a PS3 or cross platform title. Monster Hunter 4 is already confirmed as a 3DS exclusive and I imagine a lot of the other franchises we saw exclusively on the PSP will also jump ship.

This is exactly why I haven't bothered with a Vita and probably won't for some time. It needs to prove it'll have more games than just lazy PS3 ports. The launch line up is fine, but I don't think that attitude will stick, especially if sales don't pick up. You can pretty much start counting down the months to when we'll see Uncharted and Wipeout get ported to the PS3.

I'm not counting the Vita out just yet, but it's going to need to do a lot more to win me over. Hopefully their E3 showing is really strong.

@Napalm said:

Handhelds are dead.

Just like the PC is?

The Vita just needs more time to get the support it deserves. The games I do have for it, I love! I purchased a few games day 1 at launch, but since then I have only purchased MLB The Show and Disgaea 3 (Disgaea 3 is truly an amazing game). I really want to throw money at this thing, the hardware is phenomenal.

There is no reason Gravity Rush should have been delayed this long, that is a game that should have been ready to go worldwide at launch. I don't know what it would have taken, but Sony should have gave Capcom a blank check to produce a Monster Hunter Vita exclusive. From the Vita announcement all I have wanted was a proper MH game with the dual sticks on the Vita, sure Freedom Unite with the right stick remapping works fine, but a proper sequel would make the Vita the system to have. Instead they are letting Nintendo put out MH3g on the 3DS and soon MH4 on the 3DS. This has to be the biggest possible blow to the Vita yet, as far as I am concerned the PSP was my Monster Hunter system with a bit of other games tossed in.

Maybe we will see more at E3. But after this weeks Disgaea 3 release, the future looks bleak. Gravity Rush and Persona 4 is about it for future Vita stuff I am excited for.

Paranoid? No.

Pessimistic? Yes.

As long as Persona 4 The Golden comes here to the states then I could careless about what happens with it in the future...although it would be nice to have some decent games trickle out now and again.

This is why I'll never buy a Vita. Sony can fuck themselves.

Ok?

Yeah, it's looking a bit shaky these last couple of months, and the apathetic response even in Japan is worrying. Here's hoping with Kaz in charge and his focusing on games as a pillar of his restructuring of Sony, the system gets a little more love. Or at least a Monster Hunter game, that'd make me happy.

@ninjakiller: Eh... Then people shouldn't buy any iOS devices either.

I love the system, hope it does well for the long haul. Once/if a good selection of quality games starts ramping up for it, I think it could be the portable system of choice. I have played The Hell out of Unit 13 on mine, and enjoyed every minute, but it's in a dry area right now. Looks like May-June could be good months for the system with LBP, Resistance and a few other big titles hitting.

I'm also looking forward to more PSP titles becoming compatible. Never got a chance to play that Motorstorm Artic Edge game on the PSP, but I would totaly snag it on the store to play on the Vita.

@Sergio said:

@ninjakiller: Eh... Then people shouldn't buy any iOS devices either.

Which is why I have an android.