Sony at E3 2012

They better go strong on the Vita stuff. Price drop, tons of games announced, etc, etc. They have to double down on the Vita.

Yup. With Sony Corp in the shitter, no new console on the immediate agenda, Vita's lukewarm sales, and their new "One Sony" initiative (gaming, mobile, displays), they have to go all in on the Vita. They'll need a major marketing, software, network, and publisher relations push the likes of which we've never seen from Sony.

Could be very good for those of us in the market for a Vita.

IMO it'll take more than just marketing. Release some DAMN good games, and also release a bunch of INEXPENSIVE games for the Vita. They don't have to be one and the same, but it just doesn't seem like there are many of either right now.

They don't need to go all-in on the Vita. A lot of people before the system came out said that it was a mistake and well, the last few months haven't been great. They can easily cut their losses if they wanted.

I hope they don't, though. I want it to be a good system. I don't think I see a path to prosperity here, though.

The company as a whole is now in crisis mode. They knew that when they launched the Vita. Gaming is now one of the main pillars of the company, so all eyes are on the PS brand.

The realignment within the company will mean a lot more resources being poured into the Vita, PSN, and the overall PS brand. A lot more is riding on the Vita now than when it was first developed, and its mediocre sales (and downright abysmal performance in Japan) mean something has to change.

Sony is now balanced on so few support beams that the loss of any single one now means a major shift in that precarious balance. So if they cut the Vita (which they could do) it probably means that Sony is heading for catastrophe. I'd like to think that they'll take the opposite approach and swing for the fences.

Swing for the fences for what? To chase a market that anyone with two eyes can see is niche? Does anyone actually believe that, in five years, the market for dedicated portable gaming systems will grow? The high point was probably around 2006. It's all going downhill from there and Nintendo will be capturing most of the market (kids, mainly).

I don't want to turn this into another "why the Vita is having a rough go of it" thread. There are tons of them (because it's blindingly obvious). My point is that I don't see why Sony should sink tons of resources into convincing people into buying something they don't want and doesn't fit into their lives.

I mean, I like the idea of "swinging for the fences" on Vita, but the thing is: every dollar Sony spends on Vita is a dollar not spent on the PS3. The PS3 is a popular system people like with a well-regarded network behind it. They would probably be better off spending that Vita money on just more PS3 stuff.

I don't think Sony will just cancel the Vita, but I also am not convinced it would be a bad move. From the beginning it was a strange product to release, now it is beginning to look indefensible.

People were saying the same thing about the 3DS -- until the massive price cut. The problem for Sony is that now everyone is EXPECTING a similar price drop for the Vita and are holding off buying it. If there's a market for the 3DS, then there should be an audience for the Vita too -- it's far superior.

I mentioned this in another thread - I always knew the 3DS was going to be fine. Because it has Mario, Mario Kart, and will have Pokemon. Those games never ever fail, and always find an audience.

The Vita doesn't have Mario Kart. Monster Hunter isn't exclusive anymore, and all the big PS3 games are playable... on a PS3. It's tough to get excited about a PS3 port, even if that port has cross platform play. Gravity Daze isn't going to do what Mario Kart did.

The hardware for the Vita is definitely better than 3DS, but hardware doesn't sell systems.

i'm calling it -- ps4 will be announced.


and i hope they say nothing about the vita. that thing is useless.

10K bet says you're wrong.

Cutting the legs out from under PS3/PSN/Vita is stupid, especially when MS is also waiting.

they must beat ms to market. that's why it must be revealed this e3. they're not gonna reveal it next e3 and launch it five months later.

Well, I think you're writing it off prematurely... Vita's been out (in the west) for only 2 months. If the 3DS's success was such a certainty, I don't think Nintendo would have dropped the price by $80 only 5 months after launch.

The 3DS is now selling better at this point in its life cycle than either the DS or the Wii. Talk about a turnaround. So, no, Sony wouldn't be chasing a niche market. They're currently letting Nintendo steal the portable market out from under them. And it's clearly a thriving market. Far from niche.


Exactly. There's an undeniably large market there. Sony just hasn't had much luck in securing the Vita a place in it. Nintendo recognized the "crisis" early and made huge adjustments to their 3DS strategy. Sony is acting like nothing's wrong.

I don't agree with you. I don't see where the "undeniably large market" is going to come from. The PSV looks a lot like the PSP, in that Sony released a really high quality portable with a ton of features and the capability to play near console quality titles to an apathetic market.

Nintendo has their own center of gravity. The 3DS sells to Nintendo fans, of which there are a lot - and a lot more new ones since 2004 or 2006. The people buying a 3DS to play Mario Kart are not going to buy a Vita.

I don't think portable COD or portable Killzone are going to get COD or Killzone fans to buy a portable system. I just think there is little overlap there - I don't think COD fans are itching to play COD on the road. The iPhone is the gaming handheld for that market. I could be wrong but the Vita to date certainly hasn't convinced me.

MS did more or less just that with the 360. They announced it on an MTV show in early summer and released it that November.

Anyone remember that show? How they said you could make clothes for the Tony Hawk game and sell them on XBL and make real money?

That's Sony's attitude, too. Which is why Vita is quickly falling off the edge.

But the 3DS was in exactly the Vita's position at its launch. It's not like Nintendo's "center of gravity" was a given. They had to create that center of gravity because it wasn't there for the 3DS. How did they do it? Radical price drop right away. Free games to early adopters as an "apology." Dedicated, quality entries from their top franchises. It also doesn't hurt that there are almost zero issues with BC (which is a much bigger deal in the portable space than it is on console).

Sony needs to play according to the Nintendo playbook. Instead, the device is being slowly bled to death by competing corporate interests. More than anything else, Sony needs to convince publishers and consumers that they're 100% unified behind the device. But Sony keeps treating it as the "lesser citizen" in their PlayStation universe, or at least as the child of a divided home.

I'm sure it's demoralizing to them that this once-great Japanese company isn't able to sell its hottest new device in their own country, but rather than wallowing in self-pity, they should do something about it. I mean, the fact that this thing is selling only 40k units/mo in Japan (after only a couple of months on the market) is an outright failure. And yet, what are they doing about it? Absolutely nothing.

The issue here is that Sony doesn't have Nintendo's games. They don't have Mario Kart, Mario, or Pokemon, which have a huge fanbase of millions of people that buy everything with those games. I mean, there's no way the 3DS was going to fail after a Pokemon came out. My guess is that B&W 2 were probably going to be repurposed into a 3DS game if Mario Kart/Mario didn't do what they did.

It's not like Uncharted fans the world over just had to have a Vita because Uncharted was a launch game. Same with WipeOut. Or Hot Shots (I am a HUGE Hot Shots fan). It's just not the same. Those are all good games by all accounts, and the Vita launch was unquestionably better than the 3DS'. Nobody cares.

Like I said in another thread, the only game Sony has that even approaches that level is Gran Turismo. Yea, they should get a GT out on Vita as quickly as possible - I hope it happens. But it's Gran Turismo. We know what happens there.

If they can get a Gran Turismo out on this system this year, that would be a huge boost for the platform. A GT that links with GT5 PS3 would definitely be a day one buy for me.

Sony did have a massive, worldwide system seller: Monster Hunter. It was a far bigger seller over its many versions than even GT was. Losing that franchise to the 3DS was the biggest possible death blow the Vita could have received. But there's nothing stopping Sony from finding a new big franchise from a third-party publisher. They just don't seem to be even trying. Yet.

Agreed, but I think that series kind of fell into their lap. The first one was so crappy on PSP. It just was the right game at the right time. I don't think games like that come around all the time.

The entire games industry is predicated on those kinds of gambles. Sony would be idiotic if they're just waiting around for something to fall into their lap.

Sony tried that same "if you build it, they will come" strategy early on with the PS3. It failed miserably. Only after they brought the price down and had some brilliant exclusives and strong multiplatform releases did the system pick up steam. Swagger doesn't suit them, and yet it's their constant MO. It's practically pathological.

I'm confident that Sony can ultimately turn the Vita around, but it just seems stupid to wait while Nintendo (yet again) steals the market out from under them.

2013 launch is very, very unrealistic. Especially with Sony and MS not in a hurry to undercut their current successes.

Sony is waiting on MS, and MS is in no hurry having built a huge US market share and selling a shitton of kinects. They're both going to go head to head this time, and it'll be in 2014 or maybe even 15. MS doesn't need the jump, if it focuses on launch software. I expect them to be smart and do so.

Meh, they made a gamble. You could have shaved off $100 at launch by not including bluray and backward compatibility. The former being one that paid off, as it killed HDDVD and is a continuous royalty stream to Sony.

Was it worth it? Not yet, but they won the first round of battles in what is a long war. Streaming might undercut them the royalties DVD has brought, but it does seem to be the HD solid media for the foreseeable future. Sonys making money off every disc printed and every player sold. But yes, they did forfeit the US gaming market and stifle early PS3 sales. Then again, it's not like there was much software to showcase the early PS3 worth while anyways. Testimount to that is a ton of blurays I purchased instead of games in the first few years.

MS is most likely going to jump in next gen too, to provide bluray playback on their next system, so it has everything.

There was hubris there, but there was also calculation. That said Sony corporate def has a problem building stuff that the consumer wants. They rely too much on their idea of what the next "thing" is, and then outsourcing the manufacturing to cheap Chinese factories that inevitably undercut their "quality product" brand image that at least used to provide cover for their build and supply it oriented model. Once top notch quality went, consumers have no reason to not just go after what they want, not what Sony is forcing on them.

Vita is a good example. It's a crazy little piece of technology, but really how many people are going to use one? How many people have the time to play 1/2 games (not tablet games, but also not full games) during their downtime? Especially at a very high price point, and having to buy propitiatory media? Why not shell out less for a tablet (or phone) that does more, and can give you gaming experiences at around the same level? Sure, you can;t hdmi it to a TV and play Uncharted, but is that really where the portable market is heading?

If Sony was looking ahead, it would have made more sense to make a tablet like handheld, with a huge open marketplace / app store, and find a way to really remotely connect it to PS3 over broadband for when you want to play something a bit more in depth. Make it a handheld tablet that is also a remote console.

Instead they made a handheld PS2&3/4 for a niche market that's only getting smaller and want to sell it for a premium. guess they learned little from the PS3 launch...

I disagree. Significant pressure is coming from publishers because software sales are sliding, so it doesn't really matter how happy Sony and MS are with console sales. If the next gen doesn't hit by the end of 2013, Sony and MS will have lost a hefty chunk of publisher resources and commitments.

Software sales are sliding because there's nothing out 9 months of the year. Everything AAA is slated for October-Dec now. It's getting ridiculous!

And a lot of the AA/B stuff is just carbon copy junk now a days. It's not worth a purchase other than waiting for the fall deluge that got the love from publishers.

Publishers have been bringing this on themselves.

TM was a good example (kinda). It had a really well launch week (only for word of mouth about online issues cut it's feet out). If Sony supported it better, it would be selling much better. Releasing big titles not all clustered together gives people a reason to buy a good game. Releasing good games, that are wrot with bugs, glitches and online issues kinda hurts sales too. Future sales of different IP's when people keep a eye on developer and publisher of said crappy experiences.

If you're not IW/Rockstar/NaughtyDog/Dice, why are you trying to compete with them during the holiday period? Especially if you don't have grassroots buzz, and your marketing budget is tiny? You're setting yourself up for failure, minus having something incredible that no one has ever seen or done before.

Didn't Twisted Metal get delayed specifically because they didn't want to lose it in the Christmas shuffle?

I liked the demo but it did disappear pretty fast. Maybe the world just doesn't care about another Twisted Metal game.

Back when Rayman bombed I saw a lot of people online saying that they should've just delayed it. I submit that the game would've bombed no matter when it came out. Not every game can be a hit.


I totally disagree - 2013 is a near certainty IMO. The systems might be doing well now (even though in March they were all down y/y), but they are all old as hell and another 24-32 months is an eternity. The big reason why there is so much carbon copy junk coming out now is because the hardware is so old, the engines are all developed, gamers are all locked in with their choice of franchise. There is nothing else to do with this hardware.


Like the Wii U?

This.

Nope, ESP needed more dev time and sony allowed it. Not getting lost was an added benefit, as I don't think it would have sold nearly as well in that release slot. Truth be told, it probably needed another 1-2 months from it's feb release date. Right now would have been better, assuming the launch bugs and issues could have benefited from the extra time. As said, news on the issues severely undercut the game. People don't tend to go out and buy $60 games with reports that it shuts down older phat PS3's or has server connection issues out of the box...

As for Rayman, it's on my list. I heard it was a hidden gem, but I'm running into the issue of over-saturation in the market. I have too many great games to play, and not enough time. I will get to it, but I haven't even got to either of the Batman games for example...

Anyways, over-saturation is also a problem.


Totally disagree. There's always something to do. There were plenty of late PS2 games that created or expanded genres and franchises and made a pretty penny.

Publishers are just stuck in COD copy mode, and dev's are being forced to chase AAA games, or deal with nothing.

Did we really need Uncharted 3 so soon? Did SOCOM, Homefront, and Medal of Honor or the other litany of shooters that blandly copied COD?

The problem is the same problems that are going to lead to the forecast second great crash that is going to come if things don't change. That has nothing to do with the hardware, and everything to do with the software, and support, and lack of diversity. If GFX are the only thing driving new game sales now, then gamers have lost and the console industry is doomed.


No. Since it's only a tablet in appearance and is tied to the local system completely via wifi if I'm not mistaken. There's no app store. There's no dedicated games for just U play. And it's not a tablet, it's only a additional touch screen for gimmicks in the larger scope of a game on the WiiU system.

I'm talking more of a kindle fire or ipad, that looks like the PSV. And that doesn't just do remote play as a gimmick, but as something that functional works to play PS3 games from the cloud broadband, while otherwise acting exactly like tablets do now.

I know I play every game made, and perhaps I'm easy to please, but I've played a ton of great games on the PS3 (many are multiplatform) and have about 10 others I haven't even had time to get to in my game drawer. I certainly haven't been wanting for games to play...

I know I'm in the minority, but I think the blockbuster games like Uncharted are over-hyped cutscene fests. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all three UCs, I just don't consider any of them to be in my top 10 games list.

The PS2 came out in 2000, and the PS3 came out in 2006. So, right now the 360 is already older than the PS2 was when the PS3 came out, and the PS3 is getting close.

Developers are stuck in COD copy mode because that's all millions of gamers will play, and they want to try to reach that audience. After a certain amount of time, gamers just play what they played before.

I think new hardware is a way for the industry to clear out all the old junk. Developers need to come up with new ideas, new code needs to be written, new ideas need to be tried out. It's the best time to try out new IP and see what hits with the market. There's always old brands that decline with new hardware (GTA this gen, or Resident Evil), and new brands that emerge. Developers will remain in COD copy mode as long as this gen goes on.

The home console industry crashed in part, I think, because the Atari 2600 was around so long and it was too "easy" to develop games on it. So there was just tons of crap floating around that nobody wanted. By the end of the year, the 360 will be as old as the 2600 was when the industry crashed...