Why isn't the vita flooded with AA games?

[jDSX]

This particular subsection of game developers created some of the best experiences on PS2/PSP, yet haven't found their way onto the Vita.

A great example for what I'm talking about is Pursuit Force on PSP. BigBig made such a fantastic game here (with only one sequel), yet Sony went and shut them down (does someone know why this happened?)

Even if we ignore all the PSP studios that Sony either closed or moved to the PS4, where are all the third party studios now? All we get (especially from the West), is two man indie studios making 8 bit styled games. That's all nice and good, but the slightly larger studios don't seem to want to contribute to the library, which I don't understand.

Is it because they won't make their money back, which is understandable, but surely there are enough Vita users for them to make a profit, right? Unless, Sony would've discontinued the console already.

 

[Scarlet]

Watched this video a few weeks back and found it fairly interesting. Talks about why the vita failed, seems relevant

 

[vayanui8]

Alot of them just aren't localized. the vita has a pretty big selection of AA japanese games, its just that only some of them get localized

 

[DinohScene]

Vita isn't the handheld Sony hoped for unfortunately.

 

[DKB]

It's a shame that the Vita failed. All the games on Vita, people disliked them because well, they would have ended up better on consoles, like the PS3. It's sort of silly what type of games they had on there, to be honest.

 

[DownSyndrome]

why the vita failed:
no cfw
i think

 

[RemixDeluxe]

Watched this video a few weeks back and found it fairly interesting. Talks about why the vita failed, seems relevant

I watched that video too (I subscribe to Extra Credits) but I disagree with the comparison to Neo Geo. It may not have been the success that most people wanted but what game system can you say lasted for 14 years before production finally stopped.

 

[Scarlet]

I watched that video too (I subscribe to Extra Credits) but I disagree with the comparison to Neo Geo. It may not have been the success that most people wanted but what game system can you say lasted for 14 years before production finally stopped.

I think he nails it where he said Sony's lack of backing killed it though.

 

[netovsk]

Because the 3DS clearly won this handheld gen and not even sony cares about the vita anymore, it being portrayed mostly as a remote play device.

 

[RemixDeluxe]

I think he nails it where he said Sony's lack of backing killed it though.

Yes, SNK was literally the only developer that supported their system, the game library was like 90% fighters too (hope you like fighters if you ever get one.), and the MSRP for the console was $650 while games were $200-300. Despite all these flaws they lasted for a long time.

I agree with everything else that was said.

Heres another good youtuber to explain the history of Neo Geo in detail, for anyone interested.

 

[UltraHurricane]

i think a major problem, that the video only barely touches on is how consumer unfriendly the Vita really is, very wishy-washy first-party support, the outright removal of features like youtube and let's not forget the incessant need for yet another proprietary memory card format which that alone could account for lost unit/digital game sales

They learned almost nothing from the PSP and made a device that's even more niche and unnecessarily premium

 

[netovsk]

i think a major problem, that the video only barely touches on is how consumer unfriendly the Vita really is, very wishy-washy first-party support, the outright removal of features like youtube and let's not forget the incessant need for yet another proprietary memory card format which that alone could account for lost unit/digital game sales

They learned almost nothing from the PSP and made a device that's even more niche and unnecessarily premium

Not sure about it but from what I perceived the 4gb card seems enough since no vita games are bigger than that.

Vita now seems pretty much like a complimentary device to ps4 and ps plus.

 

[UltraHurricane]

Not sure about it but from what I perceived the 4gb card seems enough since no vita games are bigger than that.

Vita now seems pretty much like a complimentary device to ps4 and ps plus.

that's assuming people only want one or two games on their vita, and i don't think people enjoy having to constantly redownload their purchases versus the convenience of having a dozen or so games on a $10 32gb sd card on the 3DS

 

[netovsk]

I might be wrong but there is no need to redownload anything. Vita downloads are saved to ps3 or ps4 hard disk, which are bigger and way more cost effective than sony's or even sd disks.

 

[jDSX]

I might be wrong but there is no need to redownload anything. Vita downloads are saved to ps3 or ps4 hard disk, which are bigger and way more cost effective than sony's or even sd disks.

He's talking about digital PS vita games from psn

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Not sure about it but from what I perceived the 4gb card seems enough since no vita games are bigger than that.

Vita now seems pretty much like a complimentary device to ps4 and ps plus.

Except that's totally wrong? There are tons of games over 4GB, most big titles are at least 3-4GB each. The Sly Cooper Collection is 6GB, FFX/X2 HD is 6GB, Borderlands 2 is ~5GB, the rest of the PS2 collection games are >3GB each, Uncharted was ~4GB, the Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth games are >3GB each, Killzone was >3GB, Mortal Kombat, and a bunch of other weeaboo type titles.

I might be wrong but there is no need to redownload anything. Vita downloads are saved to ps3 or ps4 hard disk, which are bigger and way more cost effective than sony's or even sd disks.

The PS4 can't download Vita games, only the PS3 can. And the same can be said for PC, you could just use the content manager to transfer games to that and never redownload them again...except then you're tethered to your PS3/PC, and if you wanted to play more than a couple games you'd have to then continually transfer games which pretty much ruins the entire "portable" concept.


As for why the Vita failed, beyond the storage costs, marketing was the big thing that killed the Vita. People keep crying "no gaemz" when there are 3 times as many releases on the Vita than the 3DS has (or nearly 2x, if you don't count trashy indie games), or "no first party " when the Vita got dozens of them during it's first few years. But nobody knows about them, because Sony fucked up marketing pretty much from the very beginning. After a few years, the Vita just became a weaboo, JP translation haven which isn't all that big of a market (outside of JP, of course).

 

[Arras]

Except that's totally wrong? There are tons of games over 4GB, most big titles are at least 3-4GB each. The Sly Cooper Collection is 6GB, FFX/X2 HD is 6GB, Borderlands 2 is ~5GB, the rest of the PS2 collection games are >3GB each, Uncharted was ~4GB, the Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth games are >3GB each, Killzone was >3GB, Mortal Kombat, and a bunch of other weeaboo type titles.

The Atelier Something Trilogy which came out... somewhere not TOO long ago? is over 10GB iirc.
Edit: Looked it up, it's "The Arland Atelier Trilogy Plus". The store page says it's 8.8 GB, but the description says you need to have over 10GB free to download. Maybe that's just to be safe though.

 

[KSP]

PSVita was too powerful for its own good. Game development on Vita became too costly to be viable, considering the small userbase and the cheaper mobile game prices. Third party devs were spending development budgets on par with PS3 games to dev for PSVita since the VIta is on par with PS3. This made making games for the system a bad move for most devs. Even Sony didn't want to development games for Vita due to cost and return.

3DS on the other hand is cheap to develop games for, after all the 3DS is on par with the Wii, so costs for development was cheap and due to early piracy the userbase was high.

The Vita was hit by two throngs, 1) low userbase due to the lack of piracy 2) high dev costs due to the powerful hardware.

Later on the Japanese realized that the best way cash in on VIta is by making cheap 2D graphic novel type games, and that's why there is a huge library of cheap 2D games on the Vita in Japan, especially popular are the hentai dungeon crawler rpgs, cheap to make, but easy to sell.


This might be extreme, but if Sony had opened up an security hole in their own OS later in the console's life cycle and opened up full CFW on Vita, they would have seen hardware sales surge, but they were too set in their ways. They just can't accept the fact that piracy moves hardware. Oh well.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

VIta is on par with PS3.
after all the 3DS is on par with the Wii

No they aren't. Neither handheld is even remotely close to being "on par" with the last gen consoles. If anything, the Vita would be infinitely cheaper and easier to develop for, because it uses an ARM CPU which are well documented and easy to program for compared to the PS3's CELL CPU. Besides, if that had any kind of truth to it, how come a good fourth of the Vita's immense library are all simple indie games if it were so "costly" to develop for?

Piracy also has absolutely nothing to do with it. Read the piracy myths sticky, since I can't be bothered to go into it here.

 

[KSP]

No they aren't. Neither handheld is even remotely close to being "on par" with the last gen consoles. If anything, the Vita would be infinitely cheaper and easier to develop for, because it uses an ARM CPU which are well documented and easy to program for compared to the PS3's CELL CPU. Besides, if that had any kind of truth to it, how come a good fourth of the Vita's immense library are all simple indie games if it were so "costly" to develop for?

Piracy also has absolutely nothing to do with it. Read the piracy myths sticky, since I can't be bothered to go into it here.

Sony stated themselves that Uncharted for Vita cost so much to dev that they would never do another major AAA game for Vita again. AAA games on Vita is not cost efficient.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/triple-a-economics-simply-don-t-work-on-vita-scea-s-mesa-says/0132271

Graphically speaking Vita is on par with PS3, albeit with lower resolution. To make a Vita game like Uncharted or Gravity Rush, costs more than what the games can sell for.

Mobile games usually MSRP for less than console games, to spend equal resources on developing for mobile as console is ludicrous. Which is why Sony stopped developing AAA games on their own Vita console.

Piracy boosts userbase especially on mobile consoles, I don't give a rats ass about your piracy myth sticky. The truth is the truth.

Also read before you comment. Reading comprehension is very important in life.

I said that devs realized later that only way to make money off of Vita games is making cheap Indies, mostly hentai dungeion crawlers that cost pennies to make and can sell easily. Again, read.