AfterDawn: News

Sony forced to lower Vita expectations for second time

Earlier this year, when Sony launched its new PlayStation Vita handheld, the company claimed the Vita and its older brother, the PlayStation Portable (PSP) would sell 16 million units for the fiscal year that ends March 31st of next year.

After three months and a failed launch for the Vita of just 1.8 million units sold, Sony reduced that forecast to 12 million. This week, after yet another quarter of poor sales, the company has once again been forced to drop their fiscal year expectations, this time to 10 million units.



Overall, in the latest quarter, both handhelds combined for just 1.6 million sales.

Main rival Nintendo made a similar announcement last week, dropping its forecast for the 3DS handheld by 1 million units. However, the 3DS has been easily outselling the Vita and PSP since launch.

It appears that the world really has shifted to tablet and smartphone gaming, and its much cheaper alternatives ($0.99 anyone) to $40 games for dedicated handhelds like the Vita.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 4 Nov 2012 1:08

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• 11 comments

• bigwil450

  I really don't understand this 'smart phone gaming' thing. I mean, if someone buys solitaire for their iPhone, they're a gamer now.

  4.11.2012 02:42 #1

• Twoey.

  Maybe they should lower the price of the Vita storage cards and hope to sell more.
  

  4.11.2012 04:22 #2

• SAW_FIEND

  Wake up SONY! Lower the PSVita by $100 it's would sell a lot better.

  4.11.2012 06:29 #3

• Ryoohki

  Originally posted by bigwil450: I really don't understand this 'smart phone gaming' thing. I mean, if someone buys solitaire for their iPhone, they're a gamer now. Casual gaming is a huge market. That's why all these simple smartphone games are making a ton of money. They are cheap and lots of people are willing to spend money on them just to try it out. I would download something for 99 cents just to see if it sucked or not. I wouldn't even consider dumping 40 bucks on a game blindly like that.
  

  4.11.2012 09:56 #4

• Mysttic

  Quote:Casual gaming is a huge market. That's why all these simple smartphone games are making a ton of money. They are cheap and lots of people are willing to spend money on them just to try it out. I would download something for 99 cents just to see if it sucked or not. I wouldn't even consider dumping 40 bucks on a game blindly like that. My issue is when Sony and Nintendo throw the blame on smart phone sales as their issue for not meeting their forecast. It's called the lack of strong first and third party titles that do that. What's sad is that Creed Liberation was supposed to be the huge block buster to help boost VITA sales, but the game fell short of being amazing enough to turn it around.
  
  The question now is, how long before Sony gives up the fight. They won't lower the price of their memory no matter how many people asks; if nothing else, distributors may offered package deals but so far that's usually with a low 4GB stick. If Sony wanted a fighting chance they could attempt to make a VITA rev. 2 with a standard Micro SD slot and that may improve sales, but then they still need to tackle the issue of quality first/third party titles OR turn Vita into a dual OS boot letting users load up Droid. Sadly none of those options will take off, leaving Vita in the dust.

  4.11.2012 10:11 #5

• hearme0

  Is anyone surprised that the Vita is failing in sales???? No one buys this portable crap anymore except the Nintendo for kids.
  
  I would buy one for 29.99, not a dollar more.

  4.11.2012 16:28 #6

• SoTired

  Nice to see Sony failing.
  
  Sony has done everything possible to declare war on consumers through DRM and its cousins. In video games, Blu-Ray, and ever other type of media, Sony's primary objective is to make it as difficult as possible for people to use the the entertainment they have purchased, all in the name of fighting piracy.
  
  And what has their anti-consumer business model gotten them? A stock price that is barely 20% of what it was five years ago.
  
  If this ogre of a company goes bankrupt tomorrow, it will be a day too late.

  4.11.2012 22:49 #7

• megadunderhead

  Actually several things need to happen with the vita of which sony cannot do because of the cost.
  
  1. lower the price of the memory cards
  
  2. bigger and larger battery life
  
  3. cheaper games but do to the security in the game and the carts proprietary tech its still expensive.
  
  4. stop keeping so many titles at 30.00 to 39.00 for a digital when they can get a actually cart for 19.99 from gamestop
  

  5.11.2012 12:49 #8

• salsa36

  Quote:It appears that the world really has shifted to tablet and smartphone gaming, and its much cheaper alternatives ($0.99 anyone) to $40 games for dedicated handhelds like the Vita.
  Duh!!!!!

  8.11.2012 16:47 #9

• LeeC22

  ROFL, sorry, but seeing Sony fighting their arrogant predictions will always be a high point of the day for me. Ever since their dual-HDMI, quad network ported PS3, that was going to bring us TrueHD @ 120fps, it's always been smile worthy.
  
  Their answer to "give people what they want" is to give people something but take something else off them. Compare the launch PS3 in the US, to the current PS3 for proof. Maybe after constantly taking things away from gamers, gamers have got wise. After all, if you don't have anything from Sony, they can't take anything away from it.
  

  8.11.2012 18:33 #10

• salsa36

  Who buys portable gaming devices? Dorks and kids (kids prefer Nintendo)

  8.11.2012 21:23 #11