I must start by saying this will be an unpopular position that, I expect, will get some backlash. With that in mind I believe the Vita needs to die to bring greater prosperity to Sony. Before you go down into the comment section to prove how wrong I am here me out. But before I explain my view point we must first look at where the Vita and handheld gaming is right now.
The Vita has struggled ever since it graced the market. In Japan sales dropped by 78% in its second week on the market [1] and it dropped further in subsequent weeks [2]. In recent times the Vita has picked some traction but this traction hasn’t been an event worth celebrating. Shuhei Yoshida had an interview with Polygon back in June about the future of the PlayStation Vita. In this interview Yoshida was asked if there will be less first party in the future of which Yoshida responded "I would say, yes, that's correct" [3]. This caused a huge raucous amongst the gaming community; some hailing the death of the PlayStation Vita and other directing their anger at Sony for the lack of support. Yoshida clarified what he meant in an interview with GameReactor, “The question I was asked was, ‘going forward, [will] the number of first party will be smaller?’, and I said ‘yes, number of projects will be smaller.’ I never said we won’t make any games on PS Vita” [4]. What Yoshida said makes a lot of sense. Currently, the sale figures of the PlayStation Vita is unknown since Sony lumps its PSP and Vita figures together but the, ever unreliable site, VGChartz sits the Vita at around 8.6 million units [5].
Sony has a done a lot of restructuring even since Kazuo Hirai became CEO of Sony Corporation in a battle to plug the holes that are bleeding the ship dry. They have sold their PC business to Japan Industrial Partners [6] and they have spun off their TV business [7]. Sony has also done a lot to streamline services ever since the PS3 started to struggle. Back in 2010 PlayStation Plus was launched and ever since then it has become a very popular [8] and profitable [9] service. The whole service is an indication about bringing platforms together (with Vita, PS3 and PS4 support under one monthly fee). Sony recently took the PlayStation brand one step further with the announcement of PlayStation Now [10] and the on demand box PlayStation TV (though PS Vita TV in Japan) [11].
The problem is this progression has left the Vita in a vulnerable place. The system seems to have relegated to a cross buy/remote play device for the PS4. This isn’t such a bad position to be in but this position could best be served by a better product; which is Sony’s Xperia line. The Xperia line has been quite profitable for Sony. This profitability is especially noticeable for the months of April till June of last year where Sony saw $3.8 billion in revenue [12]. Despite the profitability the sale numbers are a lot lower than Samsung and Apple (see [12]). But Sony could out maneuver these companies by bringing remote play and PS Now to their Xperia line. PS Now on Smartphones has already been confirmed by Sony when they unveiled the service [13] but little talk has been made about remote play appearing on the Xperia line. I feel the reason for this, and the reason why PS Now is taking a long time to appear on mobile devices, is because of the Vita.
I feel the Vita is holding back Sony’s progression as Sony will not want to take another feature away from a system they are trying to save. But is this really the best route for Sony as a company. They anticipate their Xperia line to rise by 28% [14] but this rise could be further boosted by taking features away from the Vita. The PlayStation 4 has been well received with recent figures showing it has sold over 9 million units [15]. The Vita saw a bump as well which was put down to the PS4 [16]. The issue is the Vita is still an unattractive device for many and it really has not held much ground against the 3DS which has shipped around 44 million units [17]. The PS4 momentum could be best used in promoting Sony’s more attractive products, like the Xperia line, as it could be used as a Trojan Horse to sway more users away from Apple and in particular Samsung (who have the Android image down to a tee).
No smart phone or tablet manufacture currently has the capability to do what I am proposing in a meaningful way nor does any other console manufacture. Microsoft has the best opportunity as they have already looked into streaming services [18] and also they have a mobile ecosystem they need to push [19][20]. But this isn’t something that can be released quickly (see PlayStation Now) and they have never talked about remote play. The PS3 suffered from remote play issues because it never was built with that in mind which was corrected for the PS4. Bringing meaningful remote play would be difficult for Microsoft. It is also next to impossible for Nintendo to make such a move. Nintendo enjoys the high life of the mobile gaming market and shows a reluctance to move away from this. They also have no smart phone/tablet products/ecosystems to help promote such a move. In a nutshell Sony is in the best position to make this happen.
This is why I feel the Vita needs to take the fall. Without it I suspect these moves would have already been made. Sony is in a unique position they must not squander. They need to move away from the mobile gaming market now and capitalise on their PlayStation brand.
Source
[1] http://venturebeat.com/2011...
[2] http://www.crunchyroll.com/...
[3] http://www.polygon.com/2014...
[4] http://www.gamereactor.eu/a...
[5] http://www.vgchartz.com/ana...
[6] http://www.dailytech.com/So...
[7] http://www.forbes.com/sites...
[8] http://www.polygon.com/2014...
[9] http://www.forbes.com/sites...
[10] http://uk.ign.com/articles/...
[11] http://kotaku.com/playstati...
[12] http://www.theinquirer.net/...
[13] http://www.theverge.com/201...
[14] http://www.phonearena.com/n...
[15] http://www.extremetech.com/...
[16] http://www.vg247.com/2013/1...
[17] http://www.nintendo.co.jp/i...
[18] http://www.theverge.com/201...
[19] http://upload.wikimedia.org...
[20] http://upload.wikimedia.org...
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I can't say that I want to agree with this and that's mostly because the Vita hasn't been given a software lineup that really takes advantage of it. But a lot of your points are valid as the Vita seems to be pushed as a companion device and not a standalone handheld. The Playstation TV seems closer to Sony's vision for what they wanted and that is clearly a more dedicated competitor for Apple TV and Google TV and even goes in tandem with Sony's other products. That all said, there are still roughly over 8 million people with Vitas who should not just be abandoned. Yoshida's position on Vita support was not the most uplifting, but business wise it could be Sony's best move if they are serious about game streaming and PS4 appeal. Good blog.
Sony needs to keep supporting the Vita for a few more years before they drop out the mobile gaming market...a little fan service and what not. Pulling the plug now would only hurt Sony further than they already have by admitting to support it less.
I've said this years ago on somewhere else that the Vita may be Sony's last handheld. Between the predecessor's poor software sales/high piracy rate, PSVita's poor hardware and software sales, a good percentage of the somewhat small library of retail games being mediocre ports and spinoffs of console franchises, overpriced memory cards still to this very day, and the constant re-purposing of the system from being a portable PS3 to a PS4 companion accessory and finally to a streaming box competitor, things are pointing to Sony dropping out of the handheld business after the Vita had run its course.
I think Sony should release a phone with a large touchscreen and a separate (reasonably priced) add on controller shell that gives it all the functionality of a vita.
If the phone is a decent handset then people will buy it and then maybe buy the add on, vita fans will buy it anyway.
You offer many well linked references to set up your argument, but the jist of your arguments are all opinion and assumption and presumption. What's worse is that the reasoning for your actual opinions on the reasons are woefully lacking in long term appreciation of what Sony has in PSNow. You briefly reference profitability, yet you offer no evidence that the Vita line is not profitable, or what Sony's projected revenue/profits are for the system, particularly when it comes to the extension of of the Vita line with PlayStationTV. The most I've ever seen on this subject is that Sony's projections were not met, and they lowered predictions a couple quarters in a row...which has nothing to do with if a product is profitable, although to be fair, the chances for that are slim.
Anyhow on to some argument dissection.
"but little talk has been made about remote play appearing on the Xperia line. I feel the reason for this, and the reason why PS Now is taking a long time to appear on mobile devices, is because of the Vita."
PS Now has barely just appeared on any device. The beta is only two months old and Sony haven't even figured out the final implementation yet. Sony stopped pushing XPeria as a gaming phone a while ago. It didn't catch on because people don't buy phones to be a gaming device, and the market has gone to touch, not tactile controls. The lack of convenient controls on tablets/phones will delay it's adoption there, as it will likely only be feasible in conjunction with a VitaTV type setup when the user is at home. That may change in the future, but PSNow has to become a thing first. It's the same argument as a system doesn't sell because it has no games, but it has no games because it doesn't sell. PSNow however gives them a huge catalog of games so the argument is null.
Sony has barely talked about all the devices that Sony will offer PSNow on. So far, we know PS3/4, Vita, and some Sony branded smart TV's. We assume it will come to phones/tablets and other smart devices. It's only logical given what Sony's said about the service. What's more is that I feel that the VitaTV line will ultimately help PSNow reach a larger audience, that will include smart phones. Sony has no reason to limit PSNow to the XPeria line, so when it gets that far they will want to make it desirable enough to run on any phone made nowadays to some degree, which is entirely possible, and in fact the biggest appeal to PSNow...which is device independance. Sony and the publishers will make more that way...which is what they want.
Sony creating another phone OS to run PSNow is counter-intuitive to the idea of what PSNow is about. Sony trying to create yet another phone OS is only going to muddle the market, and is the exact opposite of what they should be doing. Phone OS war is already bloated, and in some ways worse than the console war. Sony would be much better served pushing PSNow, than trying to become a player in the OS market. To push it to great success means they need it available everywhere.
Cont in reply:
I'm not sure what the issue is. In many ways, Sony has abandoned the Vita. They're refusing to supply the demand in the US (even an increase of 50k might have helped, as Abdiel from Neogaf would support), they're no longer wasting precious first-party resources on it and don't spend any marketing money in advertising it.
What else can they do? Kill it?
Right now, all indicators seem to show that the Vita's a nice little sideshow for Sony. Low-risk, low profit kind of thing. It's doing well in Japan (outselling the dedicated consoles), it sells moderately in Europe and has an admirable attach rate and with Sony and Samsung's JOLED deal, their profit margin on Vita's screen may increase.
Ergo, Vita exists in this paradoxical state where it exists and doesn't exist for Sony (schrodinger's handheld?) that outright killing it wouldn't change the landscape that much.