back to article Sony: PlayStation Vita will win gamers back from tablets, phones

Sony has hit back at analysts who say its PlayStation Vita will struggle in the face of smartphone and tablet gaming, insisting punters will in fact discard those rival products for the Sony handheld. Shocker! Sony marketing man John Koller, in an interview with Gamespot, dismissed those analysts' claims, saying the company …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Personally...

    I hate all in one devices. The worst of all worlds.

    I have a Android smartphone. I also have a Honeycomb Asus Transformer Tablet, I have a Sony Walkman A-Series and I also have a PSP GO.

    They are all top of their game in what they do, there is certainly overlap, and somtimes I will listen to music on my phone for example, but I prefer to have the best, rather than compromise on a all-in-one.

    I also don't see how 99p smartphone/tablet games are in any way related to proper PS Vita games, which are clearly a "proper games". So i'm with Sony on this one, they are different markets. I think these analysts for hire are the crazies here, that don't know thier arse from their elbow and will say whatever the highest bidder wants them to say...

    1. Mike Brown

      agree

      i agree completly. the two markets are completly different. phones are ok for little puzzlers or angry birds, but for somthing more deep or complex you need real controls.

      I am a complete sony playstation fan so i have a ps3, psp and more tellingly the xperia play. and ive played games on the play that id have never player on antoehr android phone due to the touch controls. Things like emulators (swos ftw) and space sims are so so much better on the pad.

      And as a fanboy the vita is a day 1 purchase for me. cant wait

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Yes, but...

    I'd prefer deeper gaming, and proper controls with a bigger screen, definitely. But I'd also prefer not to carry an extra device around with me, solely for the purpose of playing games. Especially when the games aren't going to be all that much deeper, and the graphics not that much more impressive (especially 1 year later when phones have more power than the vita!)

    The only people who'll buy it are kids who want an extra toy, and the really hardcore fans. Which won't be enough to support it, and it'll flop like the 3DS. That's my prediction.

    1. Test Man
      WTF?

      Rubbish

      I want to play games, I play a games machine, not a phone.

    2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Except

      The hardware in this sounds a hell of a lot more impressive than the 3DS

  3. Ian Ferguson

    I have to admit...

    ...that most of the more adventurous games on my iPhone (eg. shooters rather than puzzlers) would be vastly improved with a keypad or joystick of some sort; and the chances of Apple providing that are pretty much zero.

    Also it'd be nice to choose from a small number games restricted to known, quality publishers who have invested actual money in their titles.

    I can see his point. But that still won't save Sony...

    1. Jellyjazz
      Paris Hilton

      er...

      have a look at this...

      http://www.ubergizmo.com/2010/03/gamebone-iphone-gamepad-accessory

      1. OmegaPoint
        WTF?

        Interesting

        That's quite interesting, but I'd like to know how it's going to work with anything but games that are created for it. Surely can't be very easy to translate d-pad and buttons to touch screen input and vice versa?

    2. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      It's not just

      "the more adventurous games". I haven't played a decent game of Tetris since everything went touchscreen.

  4. LuMan
    Go

    Mobile Gaming

    Hmm.. I used my wife's mobile phone upgrade to get a shiny Xperia Play and think it's brilliant. As any fule gamah noes, there's only so much you can do with on-screen controls and proper, hardware buttons are a must for any serious gamer. I'll be getting a Vita because (as has been mentioned in earlier comments) the games lend themselves to a more immersive and rewarding experience. So, Xperia for sneaking a quick bash on Asphalt on my lunch break at work, and the Vita for getting a proper fix while the wife hogs the telly. Win-win.

  5. Neil Hanson
    Thumb Up

    I agree with him

    Actually I think he's right. The problem all these supposedly awesome tablets and smartphones have is the lack of a decent control system -a touch screen might be fine for flinging birds, but it's no good for much else. Tried playing Dead Space on an Iphone? It's shite, mainly because your fingers have to cover the screen, which kind of makes it difficult to see what you're doing. I also find the games tend to be less stable, certainly from my experience of Iphone gaming, the number of crashes makes some games unplayable.

    The real test will be whether anyone actually makes some decent games for it. If they were to get franchises like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Bioshock, Mass Effect and maybe a full featured Gran Turismo (although I wouldn't expect that to arrive anytime before the colonisation of Mars in a few hundred years) I could see it being a success. Portable Elder Scrolls on a system poweful enough to run it equivalent to Oblivion on a home system would be like video game crack. You can keep your Angry Birds, thanks. I prefer proper games.

  6. DrXym

    Gaming on a smart phone...

    ... is such a painful experience it is a wonder anyone likes it. Touch is fine for simple games, e.g. Popcap style games but beyond that and it becomes a serious issue. Anything which requires thumbstick like controls is virtually unplayable even with "virtual" thumbsticks overlaid on the screen.

    I think the Vita will do okay but it depends on a lot of things, especially what else the device can do besides playing games. It's an enormously powerful device, probably more so than any phone on the market. It would be nice if it ran android for example so it benefited from other apps. It would be great for movies or even TV (over a network)

    I find it bizarre that they would sell a 3g version of the device which requires a contract to use it. It should be like the Kindle where your 3g enabled phone has access to PSN without any contract at all. Sony passes a cut of the purchase price to the network provider and provides the service free to customers. Just the way Kindle does it. They'd sell a lot more games that way and could always flog internet / multiplayer bundles on top of that for more money.

    Perhaps Sony are hoping that phone providers will subsidize the 3g version so it's practically given away.

  7. Frostbite
    FAIL

    Sony: PlayStation Vita will win gamers back from tablets, phones...

    No it won't

  8. Paul Shirley
    FAIL

    mobile phone gamers really want what the Vita has to offer

    Of course they do. But only if it's on their phones...

  9. Gary F

    Love my Android games

    I'm amazed at how good the graphics are of Android games and the addictiveness of some of them are. Who would want to shell out again for a handeld device that can only play games - and expensive ones at that. It's hard to imagine the graphics being substantially better to warrant a second device.

    I agree that controls on some touch screen games (3D shooters for example) are a let down due to the lack of a joypad or even a mouse. Some games are best reserved for a joypad/kb and large TV/monitor while the others run beatufully on a £99 or free Andoid phone.

  10. David Webb

    PSP

    Hopefully Sony will have learnt their lesson from the PSP, the homebrew scene for the PSP was massive, if Sony taps into that and produces an SDK to allow "99p apps" to appear on the Vita then they get the best of both worlds, AAA titles and throw away games.

    Personally, I can't wait for the Vita, one of the best games on any system was on the PSP (Harvest Moon: Life - what? It was amazingly gentle gameplay!). The price point isn't high either, it's bloody cheap, a portable PS3 for £200? People spend over twice that on a tablet!

    1. Mike Judge

      fixed it for ya.

      the piracy scene for the PSP was massive

  11. PoorLumpyPony

    Sadly I agree

    Meh, PSP is still on of the biggest sales platform for games in Japan.

    Almost certainly the Vita will die in europe and probably america for the reasons stated.

    But as long as the Vita gets Monster Hunter and a few other key titles, it still wont flop, at least in the far east market.

    And if it makes money not a failure right>

  12. BozNZ

    SDK Price

    Learn Sony!

    You Need an SDK price of exactly $0.00

    I can develop for android, windows, linux and ipod/phone/pad for that

  13. Dropper
    Thumb Down

    Huh?

    Phone games might be shite, well ok they are shite, but I don't see why this will be a success when the rest of the PSP line wasn't. As for a deeper gaming experience, I don't see how someone can say that and PSP in the same breath with a straight face. All PSP games have ever been is cut down versions of proper games. Fifa and Ace Combat were ok, but everything I tried was a disappointment. There was no elegance in the controls, everything was too frantic to enjoy and the depth of most games was ripped out of them.

    The PSP was the best portable video player you could own when it first came out, but the world moved on with large screen Andriods or even iPods and iPhones - and they definitely accumulate less fingerprints, scratches and are getting larger with every generation of device.

    1. Ronny Cook
      Thumb Up

      PSP a failure?

      Discounting the PSP Go (about which the less said the better) the PSP was only a failure when compared with the DS, having managed about a third of the sales of the DS, and just slightly less than the XBox 360, which is generally regarded as a successful platform. Over 50 million PSPs were sold (as of mid 2009).

      The PSP's main direct competition will be the 3DS, which has had a rocky start due to a few factors: poor battery life, a poor launch lineup, and not being rated for children under seven or so due to the 3D effect.

      I've more or less given up on playing games of any depth on the iPod Touch. This is because, firstly, a dollar a game will not fund games of the level we expect in the "home" platforms; and secondly, touch controls lack flexibility and have lousy feedback. I do NOT want to have to repeatedly check the position of my thumbs to figure out which direction I'm going.

      Basically I agree that the market for devices such as the PSP Vita and the 3DS is not the same as for smartphone gaming (although there is a large overlap). There are quite a few people around who will buy a dedicated mobile gaming device. The only question at this point is whether there are enough such people to fund the platform, and development of games for the platform, in the long term. That remains to be seen.

    2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Eh?

      When the gameboy came out, it was cutting edge, with its little black and white screen. Of course, this is a complete nonsequitur, but then so was your post.

      Guess what, the Vita's not a gameboy, and it's not a PSP either. As far as I can tell, the only thing it shares with the PSP is a similar form-factor and the name Sony. It doesn't rely on UMD (which was one of the main reasons the PSP didn't do as well as it could), and technically it is miles ahead of the competition (Nintendo DS) despite being purported to be in the same price bracket.

      The thing is, that even though Sony have become a by-word for corporate arrogance in the last few years, I still want one of these. Unlike tablet PCs, I can see a use for it.

  14. Mr Floppy

    cue N900 and wiimote and out to a big TV

    Sure, i can play some old snes games but there are some great ones there.

    Whats a gamer these days anyway? People on iPhones are calling themselves 'gamers' even though they might play smurfs village or something.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    Psh.

    Still waiting to be allowed to import Japanese games, Sony.

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