100°

Will the Lack of a Holiday Price Cut Doom Vita to Failure?

Game Rant's Jeff Schille writes: "Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida reveals that there will be no PlayStation Vita price cut this year. With no holiday price cut to boost sales, could this be the beginning of the end for Vita?"

Read Full Story >>
gamerant.com
Erimgard4299d ago

It won't doom the Vita, nor is it the beginning of the end. The Vita's fantastic holiday lineup and Cross Buy bargain will help the system sell better than it has thus far (which isn't saying anything at all, given its abysmal sales) and the Vita should have an "okay" holiday season.

A price cut could have been a turning point that made the Vita have a GOOD holiday season, but frankly, Sony will take what they can get with it. A price cut is out of the question right now, because Sony is already losing money on the system, and they don't have the spare cash to dig that hole deeper in order to move units.

Long term I believe the Vita will struggle to be successful, and a price cut could very well fix that, but for now the Vita isn't doomed. It will see a sales increase in Q4 of 2012, and then its sales will slump again. The Vita will not be able to reach massive success without a price cut, but now is not a viable time for Sony unfortunately.

DarkHeroZX4299d ago

the vita is actually profitable. 3g model only cost $159.10 to produce. its priced at $299, so they're bringing in atleast $40-50 for every vita sold after all other fees are paid. but its not so much the price thats the issue, its content lol. Sony can very well pull it off but they need to bring in more value which they are working on. Now what does need a price drop is those memory cards.

Erimgard4299d ago

Sony said themselves that they were going to lose money on the Vita for the first 3 years.

Erimgard4299d ago

I take the word of Sony's CEO and President over an analyst's guess.

http://www.examiner.com/art...

Here's the actual interview (in Japanese) if you want to check it:

http://translate.google.com...

I don't see why Sony would lie about the system not turning a profit until three years into its life.

DarkHeroZX4299d ago

Dude both your articles are old lol. Mine is more recent, yours are much older.

Anyway they invested over 150 million on the vita development. Even though they make money off of every vita sold they aren't going to turn profit until an estimated 3 year. Its like how the ps3 is profitable now but its still billions in the hole.

hkgamer4299d ago

Depends what you mean by being profitable. Cannot really say how much everything costs but if you add up all other costs occurred during the process of manufacturing the Vita it may not be making a profit at all.

R&D costs - most likely millions and millions
Labour costs - all those people working at factories
Marketing costs - Advertising/PR
Material costs - Screens, buttons, casing, etc..
Manufacturing costs - factories/machines/logistics

Not really sure which categories you can sum up and then divide to work out the true value of a single Vita but they will probably add up more than $299.

Probably didn't catergorised them properly and surely alot more other costs that my mind can't think of right now.

@Erimgard
With Sony's new approach to Vita such as Crossbuy and Playstation Plus, it would probably be harder to calculate the actual revenue the Vita is producing. So it may actually take longer than 3 years to see profits.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 4299d ago
Anon19744299d ago (Edited 4299d ago )

It's funny, and yet sad. I was just typing in another "Vita doom" article on the front page that this was getting ridiculous and this one popped up. A guy can't even keep up with the speed that this shit is coming out! Try typing in "Vita" and "Doom" or "Save" into the search to see just how bad it's getting on this site. The goddamn thing hasn't even been available worldwide for six months yet, and Sony themselves have said they're happy with Vita sales and digital sales were exceeding their expectations.

So do any game journalists out there want to step up and report on, oh..I don't know...maybe some game news? Anyone? Seriously, as a community, we need to stop giving these guys hits, and blacklist these sites that are just in it for hits. And I'm not talking just Sony detractors, I'm talking the ridiculous Nintendo doom articles as well. It's funny. 360 games sales have dropped off by nearly half the first 6 months of 2012 according to Microsoft themselves, Wii sales had fallen 55% year over year last quarter and yet Sony says they're happy with the Vita's sales and revise PSP/Vita sales down a bit, reveal a bunch of cool incentives for Vita users and it's "DOOOOOM!"

TBM4299d ago

OMG this is insane lol. we can't go one minute without the doom articles. where's the actual gaming news on this worthless site?

Mustang300C20124299d ago (Edited 4299d ago )

Right because Tretton and Sony are going to come right out and say they are disappointed about the Vita performance. It is called spin like you are doing. By the way your a grown man how come you keep whining about articles you don't want to see? That goes for everyone hear on any article. Why are trying to keep up with these articles.

"For gaming, Sony only incurred a $45 million loss, which is fairly low compared to the other divisional slides, but still adding to the financial troubles of the company. Sony cites sagging PSP and PS3 sales as being a root cause for their losses, while the Playstation Vita has failed to counterbalance those losses due to low sales. Sony is increasingly lowering their expectations for this fiscal year, looking to consolidate their financial forecast for the fiscal year in response to expected losses."

http://www.blisteredthumbs....

They keep having to adjust their expectations from the quarterly reports.

However long it has been on the market is irrelevant. If it isn't performing well since day one in Japan and what we know today Worldwide from the fiscal reports than yes it is in trouble. Dead NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It isn't performing as planned period.

Mustang300C20124299d ago

The price cut is out of the question because Sony can't afford to price cut it. That is why we see the bundles coming. Sony's plan was to offset the possible and already confirmed lowered sales of the PSP and PS3 with the Vita and from the fiscal report Sony themselves state that this isn't working so far because the low sales of the Vita in addition to the low sales of the games for the system.

Sony's real issue will come if the PS4 is coming in 2013(IMO I think it is coming in 2014) and if that happens the issue is where the price will be when it comes to a PS3, VITA and PS4 on the market. If the PS4 drops next year and Vita is still underperforming even with a price drop, than it will be the first to ax because now way Sony is going to just stop PS3 support.

Silly gameAr4299d ago

I don't know why people still go to articles like this. They're all pretty much the same.

Metal-X4299d ago

There's that word again.....

TheGamingArt4299d ago

* sigh *.... LEARN HOW TO BE A PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST. God damn, stop spamming with this B*** S***

miyamoto4299d ago

NO. the types of games will decide Vita's fate.

Show all comments (34)
150°

Sony CEO says although AI "has been used for creation," it's "not a substitute for human creativity"

"AI is not a substitute for human creativity. We position it as a technology that supports creativity. Creativity resides in people. We will continue to contribute to people's creativity through technology," the CEO said.

Read Full Story >>
gamesradar.com
1nsomniac1d 22h ago (Edited 1d 22h ago )

...not yet but 100% within the next 10 years!

..Then Sony will use it like the drop of a hat. They're no different to the others.

isarai1d 19h ago (Edited 1d 19h ago )

They used to be 😞 sure it was always a business, and money's always the priority, but they used to have a very strong stance on supporting artists and creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" was a phrase they touted a few times back in the ps1-ps3 era, a philosophy carried over from their music branch PlayStation was created from. It's not COMPLETELY gone, but it's barely there compared to what it was back then, i just want them to return to that.

Eonjay1d ago (Edited 1d ago )

I am highly encouraged by their statement about human creativity. "Dont f#@k with the artist" is exactly what they are saying. But at the same time, I don't think people understand that Sony is a corporation. If they don't realize growth, they don't get to exist. When you say 'Sony', you are talking about a bunch of investors. To speak about them any other way is a illogical and incorrect. They haven't changed. They have been a group of investors since they became a public business.

isarai1d 12h ago

Ugh, i really wish people would stop gambling people's livelihoods by turning a project/game into their political soapbox. Im all for statements and having your own opinion, but there's more people working on this than just druckman, ham fisting your political beliefs onto just seems inconsiderate for everyone elses job security when it can result in a failure due to people avoiding it for that reason.

I play games for escape, im so tired of nearly every AAA game blatantly dragging real world issues to shove in my face when I'm trying to take a break from it all. They don't even bother to be subtle about it, quite the opposite, it's blasted and force fed to you and it's just getting exhausting

Einhander19721d 2h ago

People are taking a whole interview and cutting it down to clips that make him look bad and take what he actually was saying out of context. For example he also said things like this AI has "ethical issues we need to address"

-Foxtrot1d 2h ago

@Einhander

Why defend him at this point?

It’s not taking things out of context, he said what he said.

Old ND would never talk about soulless AI taking over so many creative things they are well known for. The whole “ethical issues” is just a good PR spin people who push this crap fall back on to make their statements not seem as bad. So many AI lovers do this.

AI has no place is so many creative based things.

Einhander19721d 3h ago

Well yeah, because everyone else is using it so they need to stay competitive. It's the same as paid online, they didn't want to go that route but their competition was making so much money they needed to add paid online just to keep up.

RaiderNation1d ago (Edited 1d ago )

AI will never replace humans in game development in terms of conceptualizing new games. Humans still need to come up with the ideas and what they want to implement. However much of the day to day menial coding could be AI driven to reduce production time and team size. I could also see AI being used for bug testing/optimization that could lead to better quality games at launch. I'm actually very optimistic about how AI can positively impact game development.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1d ago
XiNatsuDragnel1d 20h ago

Good statement but hopefully this holds up

NotoriousWhiz1d 1h ago

People that aren't software developers just don't understand the benefits of AI. People who's only exposure to A.I is the Terminator movie and other related sci fi films won't understand the benefits it provides.

It's not about replacing human labor. It's about making human labor easier.

Many years ago, I had laser eye surgery done. It was performed by a robot. The doctor took my measurements and calibrated the machine to make sure it would do what needed be done. And then the robot corrected my vision in 10 seconds.

15 years later and I still have 20/20 vision.

Eonjay1d ago

AI in and of itself is not a 'bad'. Money is bad. Money is evil, and corporations will do whatever they can to get more of it. They will find ways to implement AI to replace as may jobs as possible. This isn't even up for debate. It is the charge of the corporation to maximize returns for the investors. They have no choice. I'm a developer and I know that my job will absolutely be replaced. Therefore, I have decided to become an AI dev. AI has a lot of potential to help us solve problem on a scale most can't even imagine. The issue, as ever is that our monetary system only ever allows us to focus on greed and fiscal growth.

But I am a pragmatist. Perhaps an AI model can be built to help protect us from our most dangerous instincts and habits. And perhaps Congress can pass laws to protect us from people who would use AI to manipulate and control us (spoiler: they wont).

RaiderNation11h ago(Edited 11h ago)

Progress is inevitable. Nobody driving cars today is complaining that the horse and buggy is no longer around. Yes, some jobs will be lost but guess what? With innovation comes new job opportunities. It's how the cycle of the job market works.

150°

Sony Patents To Prevent You From In-Game Harassment By Reading Your Emotions

A new patent recently published by Sony wants to gather biometric data of gamers to track whether one is being harassed using AI tools.

Profchaos30d ago (Edited 30d ago )

I hope this is one of those patents that never comes to fruition.

I already dislike the fact you can pay a significant amount for a online service buy associated games and content on said service and get banned from that service over potentially a misunderstanding the bans are already handed out for flimsy reasons

I'd rather see money invested in a ban that simply removes the offensive players ability to communicate with unknown players allow them to continue party chats with friends but not with Joe blow on cod.

exputers30d ago

Agreed. Blizzard recently banned a college Overwatch 2 player who's dependent for saying "shit." Pretty harsh.

Profchaos29d ago (Edited 29d ago )

How rediculas really. You can't say a word that's allowed in most PG films and prime time TV but the game is based around killing the enemy team using guns, explosives etc.

It's just backwards.

just_looken29d ago

What your talking about is called block list

In 2006 a spaceship dropped of the playstation 3/xbox 360 i say that that generation was the last great gen with game functions/tech that has yet to comeback

Anyhow the playstation 3 if you block listed a id they could not talk to you in chatroom with either text or voice. But that was pre mind fucked 2018 when people were more human than sheep.

But hey gta 6 is coming out billion dollar budget without a single player custom character creator and without singeplayer coop off/online something saints row 1-3 had on the xbox 360.

z2g30d ago

Take my social security and bank account numbers too! Here’s a picture of my wife and our address.

phoenixwing30d ago

Cmon where's the pictures of your children. Don't hold out on them.

H930d ago

At this rate I feel Sony will eventually sell a room to play games in it where they can monitor your every breath

jambola29d ago

I genuinely get a bit worried sometimes when a friend says something that could be offensive In a party
Because I have no trouble believing some bans would happen when in a private party for saying something wrong

SegaSaturn66929d ago

I want them to censor erotic content by measuring my groin temperature so i dont get too distracted while playing black ops 2.

Popsicle29d ago

Terrible idea. Not only do I not consent to providing my biometric data, the potential for mishandling biometric data is almost a certainty. Positive stress and negative stress can produce similar changes in biometrics. Interpreting the precise emotion a person is feeling is not only invasive but could be easily misconstrued. I hope this never comes to fruition.

Show all comments (14)
130°

Sony Could Increase Your Game's Difficulty If It Sees You Complain About It

Sony has recently published a new patent that wants to dynamically handle the games' difficulty and gameplay based on the player's emotions.

jznrpg30d ago

This is something I might use. Sometimes I play some good games but they don’t have difficulty option and are a little too easy.

Profchaos30d ago

Souls games will be like that players struggling make it harder

PassNextquestion30d ago (Edited 30d ago )

I think if used correctly it could work well

jambola30d ago

cool idea
cool idea for horror games especially
the way it's explained here sounds like it could never be forced hopefully, so that's ok with me

Show all comments (8)