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[CamHostage]

While it wasn't strong enough to compete with Nintendo's portables, the PSP was *very* popular in Japan. A lot of my Japanese friends (and my impression going to Japan a lot is that that sentiment extended to pretty much Japanese gamers in general) really, really wanted to love the Vita. But it didn't get enough support from the get-go to actually become a beloved platform, so when Sony killed it, most people simply saw it as something that couldn't be helped.

Oh, and you could tell even in the very early days that Vita was not cleared for success just as soon as people saw that a Monster Hunter was not in the early titles promised, and then every response from Capcom was weirdly hand-wavey about it. Something was clearly not right early on, and hopes for a sophomore success faded further and further as time went on.

It's sad, if you talk with developers from the time, I believe many would say that they thought good things of the platform because Sony was courting them in ways that never happened before. A friend of mine even told me, They came to us earlier than ever and they asked us what we thought of the proposed prototypes and what we wanted in a portable, it was so unlike Sony to do that. PlayStation was positioning Vita for success as well as they could imagine it, but I think they were getting non-committal responses right away from publishers (what with the mobile explosion and the rising production costs and some troubles in stores as well as the digital and indie revolutions leading to the general eroding of the traditional publisher model) That spooked them, and justifiably so, as both Vita and 3DS had rough beginning despite nice launch libraries. (3DS dropped the price and did some other extreme rescue projects that saved the platform to a degree, plus they also scored that slippery MonHun; I don't know if Sony could have pulled off any of those same tactics even if they tried.) They went early and hard on inroads for indie developers, to deal with the lack of publisher activity, and they encouraged the cross-buy program to build the idea of a multipurpose library. Some of that kind of worked (it's a big part of why Vita has as strong of a fanbase as it does two years after it stopped being manufactured,) but obviously it was never nearly enough to keep the platform competitive.

So the idea that Sony just didn't give a shit about Vita goes against some of what I understand (distantly) of the situation. They thought they had something good and that there was a battle plan for the next phase of portable console wars, and when not only did they get their asses handed to them, but they saw Nintendo pull up lame as well, they knew they were fucked. I still lament that they never made some of the changes that could have appealed to the few consumers they did reach (a Vita 3000 revision that just got rid of those damned Memory Cards would have been a godsend,) but everybody knew real quickly that Vita was never going to be a PSP2.

 

[Ozzie666]

Let's be honest, what bailed the PS3 out of it's disaster? top quality Western Games, exclusives like Last of Us, Uncharted 1-3, Little big Planet. What drove the PS4? top quality first party big budget games like Spider-man. Japan Games like Puppet Master and Tearaway, were sent to die. Even though they were great games. Even Square-enix chase the Western Market.

Do people forget how close Sony was 10 years ago to financial disaster? Sony was on the ropes, fighting for their lives. They were dire, almost exactly like Sega. But Sony had a bit more behind them outside of gaming, actually a lot more, they sold assets and refocused. Unlike Sega, Sony managed to survive.

Much as I hate Sony for dropping the Vita. It was a loser for them after the first year, they were scared after barely surviving disaster of the Ps3 launch. Yes the PSP was great, but software attach rate wasn't. So I don't blame Sony for playing it somewhat safe. As a short term plan for the next 5-7 years it may put them in a stronger position to take some chances in the future.

PS4 saw a slim model, but hardly any price cuts, this past generation with on-line and digital sales, Sony made a killing, just printed money.

I hope Sony themselves, haven't forgotten the PS3 era, the lost generation.

 

[ArtHands]

Vita died so the PS3 may live.

From another perspective you can also argue that the Vita existence is what almost killed the PS3.

 

[Md Ray]

I have a list of users on here

 

[phil_t98]

I think it would take a lot for Microsoft to start win a gen over Sony.

I agree but they are going about things in the right way lately

 

[sol_bad]

Sounds like they are trying to follow in the footsteps of the Lucasfilm "internal civil war". Don't care for and won't follow these rumours.
I'll just wait and see what their actual output is in terms of games.

 

[MasterCornholio]

I agree but they are going about things in the right way lately

I'm not saying they are not. But they still need to prove themselves Sony has already done that. With that said I don't think PlayStation will Dpn Mattrick themselves with Jim. Don almost killed Xbox and if it wasn't for Phil Microsoft would have shut it down. I don't think Jim is doing the same thing. Plus we still need to see what they actually do before judging them.

 

[I Love Rock 'n' Roll]

Maybe Japan "problem" is somewhere else and focussing on a fight between USA and Japan PS brand is not the best way to think about it. They have less and less kids than before, right? Based on demography the ship makes sense.

 

[phil_t98]

I'm not saying they are not. But they still need to prove themselves Sony has already done that. With that said I don't think PlayStation will Dpn Mattrick themselves with Jim. Don almost killed Xbox and if it wasn't for Phil Microsoft would have shut it down. I don't think Jim is doing the same thing. Plus we still need to see what they actually do before judging them.

in terms of proving themselves its an evolving situation, because something was good last gen dont mean it will be the next gen. xbox 360 to xbox one is a testament to that.

I dont think Microsoft would of shut down xbox at all, they are and have seen how much money can be made, again its ever evolving, its like when everybody said games on playstation will remain exclusive to playstation and sony have seen how much money they can make with simple ports to pc.

 

[MasterCornholio]

in terms of proving themselves its an evolving situation, because something was good last gen dont mean it will be the next gen. xbox 360 to xbox one is a testament to that.

I dont think Microsoft would of shut down xbox at all, they are and have seen how much money can be made, again its ever evolving, its like when everybody said games on playstation will remain exclusive to playstation and sony have seen how much money they can make with simple ports to pc.

Phil made it sound like they would have shut down Xbox if it wasn't for him. But maybe that's just his pride talking.

 

[phil_t98]

Phil made it sound like they would have shut down Xbox if it wasn't for him. But maybe that's just his pride talking.

never seen that quoted anywhere

 

[MasterCornholio]

never seen that quoted anywhere

Someone showed me a video with Phil saying that in it. I believe it was an interview with him during Lockdown.

 

[phil_t98]

Someone showed me a video with Phil saying that in it. I believe it was an interview with him during Lockdown.

Can you find said video?

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Nothing beats Kaz as the CEO, what a chill guy.

 

[Kokoloko85]

They barely beat the 360 though. It was like a 3 million difference. Almost a rounding error. And the Wii thrashed both.

Yeah but the 360 had a year sales advantage and price advantage. Plus everyone and the media was saying Playstation was dead.
The 360 had better hardware for 3rd party games, better online and for the first time had taken a bunch of Playstation Centric titles like Tekken, Final Fantasy and DMC.

Halo and Gears were at there peak.
It will MS’s most successful console and it still got outsold by Playstations worst selling console
Xbox doesnt have these advantages anymore

 

[MasterCornholio]

Can you find said video?

I found an article where it's quoted.

A few months later, Spencer took over as head of Xbox. Whatever jubilation he felt was short-lived; a few weeks into the job, he got a call from Satya Nadella... 'I don't actually know a whole lot about why we're in gaming,' Nadella told him... Many developers who had worked on the Xbox One felt let down by Microsoft's big vision; it was, as some told Spencer, not in line with 'the soul' of what Xbox was. 'Satya was transparent that there could be a future where gaming isn't a business that Microsoft should be in,' Spencer told me... He looked at where Xbox had failed, and how the brand could be saved — if at all. When he finally called Nadella back, it was to say this: 'If we're going to stay in the gaming space, then let's make sure we're all-in. The last thing I wanted to do was run the gaming organization here as kind of an afterthought of the company and kind of half-in, half-out. Let's go fix who we are.'

Xbox head Phil Spencer told Microsoft to go 'all-in' on gaming when brand was threatened

You learn something new every day.

www.windowscentral.com

So apparently it was Nadella told Phil that there was a possibility that Microsoft wouldn't participate in the gaming industry. From the looks of it Phil convinced Nadella otherwise.

Spoiler: Original Source

---

Phil Spencer Is Exactly Who You Think He Is

How the head of Xbox is preparing for the future.

www.gamespot.com

I definitely remember seeing a video where he said something like that. And it was one of those interviews through video chat. Can't seem to find it but the Windows Central article shows that it was a very real possibility.

 

[Kokoloko85]

The Wii only outsold those two by at most 11 million. Probably more like 8-9 million though.

And it was sold for much cheaper

 

[Kokoloko85]

Nothing beats Kaz as the CEO, what a chill guy.

I cant find the Avengers Playstation team meme/gif anywhere lol

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

You're right, but that's why Sony partnered with Microsoft for their cloud services:

Eh, that hasn't quite happened yet; that deal was actually a Memorandum of Agreement, basically an agreement to work together in the future. Kind of like a soft-contract. I might be out of the loop but Sony hasn't actually committed to moving their stuff over to Azure yet, they're still using whatever they have been using before....

...though them closing the PS3/Vita/PSP stores could indicate they are about to move over to Azure or some other servers, or maybe just make more room for PS4 and PS5 on their current servers.

They're kinda trying

I remember hearing of this one back around the time, it's an interesting concept. So much more could be done with it though but to really maximize the potential IMO you need a very strong cloud and streaming infrastructure, that can help make the engagement more seamless between devices and create some really cool almost AR-style situations if you're using a paired mobile device synced with the console, even doing things like different viewports on the various devices, etc.

I mean PlayStation is in no danger of going under

I don't think they're in danger either...yet. However, as someone who likes researching histories of other gaming companies and the industry itself, it's hard not to see that there are a few parallels here and there. They may be vague points on commonality, but currently they exist. Hard to really gauge what direction Sony is going until we see more from them and their studios by the end of summer though I would venture.

FWIW, you can always draw some historical parallels between things of the past to those of today. I've drawn parallels with mid '90s Sega and Sony here for example, but I also drew parallels between Sega's botched showings of VF and Daytona USA vs. the PS1 first impressions, to MS's botched showing of Halo Infinite vs. PS5's first showing of the UE5 demo (in terms of things confirmed running on actual hardware...well until we found out Infinite was running on a PC). I don't think anyone should take offense to the comparisons, they just serve as a helpful way of seeing where current things may or may not lead to.

And to perfectly fair, even if any of these platform holders like Sony were to "go Sega" and become 3P, that's something of a compliment considering Sega's the only ex-platform holder who still makes games, big games even (there's also SNK but to a lesser extent), and they've been one of the most consistent devs/pubs in the industry for the last decade or so (Sonic aside). I mean they just got #1 highest-rated publisher based on Metacritic review aggregate scores.

It would just be nice if they tapped into some of their other classic IP more often is all.

 

[abel empire]

I truly think its the western control over PlayStation thats killing it, theyve slowly abandonded what made playstation great, playstation was all about games and games with no boundaries ps2 was the birth of controversial shooters, games like gta, true crime and alot of japanese titles like tekken, onimusha, metal gear, devil may cry, god hand. Everything looked quality from western studios and japan but japanese games had always had an edge in story telling while western games where lifeless

The shift to western dominance has turned playstation to a political and business tool. Nowadays the priority is woke games making sure nothing offends anyone, feminism good example last of us 2, removing boobs n butts from games, censoring japanese games and because western countries salaries are always higher they are forced to pay more into western studios and therefore the games must absolutely create bigger profits.

The capitalist nature of the beast is whats ruining video games, you now basically have to cater for woke western cry babies in order to make profits, this has killed the japanese because they are more interested in making art than making propaganda pixels and eugenics.

 

[RoboFu]

Remember what happened to sega

 

[Warnen]

Reminds me of the Sega days, Sony killing it in US while costing in Japan. Hope the Ps5 isn’t another Saturn.

 

[Shai-Tan]

There wasn’t any discussion in that Reddit about the incompetence of Sony. I bought a Vita at launch and there was a ”preparing to download” bug when trying to download a game from psn that most tech savvy people would not have been able to work around themselves. They didn’t fix it for years. Even if the writing was on the wall since day 1 you would think they would want to fix that to improve the attach rate.

 

[caffeware]

its over

 

[ManaByte]

Wrong thread.

 

[Gravemind]

It’s good that the western front won the war. The Japanese side of the business has sucked hard (except team Asobi) for more than a decade. I know many people here are Ok with a company sucking for more than a decade without consequences (see MS fans) but Sony doesn’t have a filthy rich dad that pays for its screwups and buys its success.

Script provided by MS.

Please show us on the doll where Microsoft touched you.

 

[Kokoloko85]

TBH its all rumours until the next E3 like show. Lets see what games they are working with.

Sony is investing in games like Forspoken and Final Fantasy 16 being exclusive is more important than Japan Studios making the next Knack or Gravity rush...

Id rather these games like Silent Hill and MGS remake then some of the stuff Japan Studios comes out with.
But at the same time, I really do hope they still make a Miyazaki game with Japan studios, games like Tokyo Jungle and support Kojima etc.

 

[hemo memo]

They barely beat the 360 though.

At what cost tho?

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

I truly think its the western control over PlayStation thats killing it, theyve slowly abandonded what made playstation great, playstation was all about games and games with no boundaries ps2 was the birth of controversial shooters, games like gta, true crime and alot of japanese titles like tekken, onimusha, metal gear, devil may cry, god hand. Everything looked quality from western studios and japan but japanese games had always had an edge in story telling while western games where lifeless

The shift to western dominance has turned playstation to a political and business tool. Nowadays the priority is woke games making sure nothing offends anyone, feminism good example last of us 2, removing boobs n butts from games, censoring japanese games and because western countries salaries are always higher they are forced to pay more into western studios and therefore the games must absolutely create bigger profits.

The capitalist nature of the beast is whats ruining video games, you now basically have to cater for woke western cry babies in order to make profits, this has killed the japanese because they are more interested in making art than making propaganda pixels and eugenics.

Exactly!!! This needs multiple fire emojis. So many people seem to not know what’s really going on in the industry and Sony.

 

[Ladioss]

Western control killing Playstation may be a bit... strong - I think present day Sony is making some bad business decisions that will come back to bite them where it hurts down the road, but for the time being Sony is raking in money. Hard to argue that they are in the wrong.

But for me it's sure that I won't buy another Playstation hardware as long as the Californian neo-puritans are in charge.

 

[Vaelka]

Let's be honest, what bailed the PS3 out of it's disaster? top quality Western Games, exclusives like Last of Us, Uncharted 1-3, Little big Planet. What drove the PS4? top quality first party big budget games like Spider-man. Japan Games like Puppet Master and Tearaway, were sent to die. Even though they were great games. Even Square-enix chase the Western Market.

Do people forget how close Sony was 10 years ago to financial disaster? Sony was on the ropes, fighting for their lives. They were dire, almost exactly like Sega. But Sony had a bit more behind them outside of gaming, actually a lot more, they sold assets and refocused. Unlike Sega, Sony managed to survive.

Much as I hate Sony for dropping the Vita. It was a loser for them after the first year, they were scared after barely surviving disaster of the Ps3 launch. Yes the PSP was great, but software attach rate wasn't. So I don't blame Sony for playing it somewhat safe. As a short term plan for the next 5-7 years it may put them in a stronger position to take some chances in the future.

PS4 saw a slim model, but hardly any price cuts, this past generation with on-line and digital sales, Sony made a killing, just printed money.

I hope Sony themselves, haven't forgotten the PS3 era, the lost generation.

Square Enix best selling franchises are Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest which are very much very Japanese games.
Square Enix does have Western devs and games but that doesn't mean that it's their primary focus, they're still very much a Japanese studio and they also publish a lot of other Japanese games too.
I mean just because Nier Automata for example didn't sell 10mil copies doesn't mean that it's not important and not successful, I think that we kinda need to stop only looking at sales numbers alone especially considering how few people even finish games and how much it comes down to marketing alone.
Anthem and ME:A are two of Biowares best selling titles but I don't think that a lot of people would say that they're their best games, quite the opposite most would probably say that they're among the worst.

I mean it's true I guess that Square Enix wants in more on the Western market, ofc every company wants to expand I mean mobile companies and stores have been bending over backwards to get in on the Chinese market.
But I still think there is some understanding on the side of Japanese devs and publishers that there is an audience who wants Japanese games and that they offer a unique experience.
Square Enix have released some flops too in their attempts, I mean look at what a failure Marvel Avengers was how do you even manage to do that? How do you fail with that IP?
And the Tomb Raider franchise has really lost a ton of steam and interest now too.

Western control killing Playstation may be a bit... strong - I think present day Sony is making some bad business decisions that will come back to bite them where it hurts down the road, but for the time being Sony is raking in money. Hard to argue that they are in the wrong.

But for me it's sure that I won't buy another Playstation hardware as long as the Californian neo-puritans are in charge.

I think a lot of it has to do with Microsoft basically not even competing, it's not like Sony has good competition and it's just 1vs1 they're the two big console makers.
There's obviously Nintendo too but I see them as a bit of a different market altogether. They have their own thing going on.
It's not exactly hard to succeed and make money when your competition isn't doing anything and is letting you win.