UFC Developer Talks PS Vita, Says “Car Wreck”

Peter Chapman 65 Comments

Is the age of the portable games console as we know it over?  It seems like company president Lyle Hall and new signing Matthew Seymour at Heavy Iron Studios think so, at least in some fashion.

“People don’t want it,” said Hall speaking about Sony’s upcoming portable.  “That’s Nintendo’s huge challenge – how do they add value to that? If people aren’t willing to pay $249 for a Nintendo 3DS why would they pay $299 for Vita?”

[drop2]Of course, we’ve already discussed at length the notion that Vita is already too expensive.  But perhaps it’s not just the price.

“People don’t want to carry more than one thing in their pocket,” he continued, “that’s why Android and iPhone have done so well, they are the devices of choice, they offer multiple functions outside of gaming.”

Seymour’s been in the industry for 20 years, having worked for 2K Games and Microsoft Games Studios, and now works for Heavy Iron.  “With all due respects to Sony and Vita, it’s a car wreck,” he said. “And how about Xperia Play? I’d love to pull up the numbers on that.”

He’s obviously not talking about the actual tech, more the pricing, position and the struggle against platforms like the iPhone, we’d imagine.  The market is shifting, and we reckon Heavy Iron know this all too well.  It’s hard to imagine he means that Vita itself will be a “car wreck” – more the whole situation that Nintendo and Sony are facing.

“The technology is sweet,” admitted Hall, “I’m a huge fan of mobile technology, but I just don’t know there’s a market out there anymore for the hardware. I can’t see why you would want to put a device out that only does games. The consumer has spoken. We wanted to see that world exist – more players, more opportunities for us, but at the same time people don’t want that.”

“Unless there’s a super technology paradigm shift it’s not going to shift back.”

The LA based studio recently worked on UFC Personal Trainer.  We’ll have our detailed thoughts on this, PS Vita and the whole ‘mobile console’ deal later today…

Via GI.biz.

Tags:

Related stories from TSA

Sony is closing the PlayStation Store for PS3 and Vita… again
PS Vita is getting a surprise physical game release
PlayStation Vita firmware update 3.74 adds PSN restrictions
PlayStation Vita at 10 – remembering Sony’s handheld hero

65 Comments

  1. Hands up wants a Vita?

    *raises hand*

    • *Raises both*

      ….with what due respect is “car wreck”?

    • Me too. But maybe we’re in the minority. What he is saying makes sense. Hopefully people buy into the Vita though. It could be the last handheld of it’s kind.

      • Who gives a flying reproductive act about us being in the minority. There is a market for the device, with a potential for a profit.

        They are going to be alone in the “high end portable gaming” market, it may not have as big a potential profit as the “cheap cell phone portable gaming” market. They’d be fools not to go for the low hanging fruit, even if the higher ones may be bigger.

        And they could still go for the cell phone market if they decide they want to compete there (playstation branded mobile games, where did I hear about that), and not be competing with themselves because there is only little overlap of the two markets.

    • Hand is up!

    • *raises hand aswell*

      I don’t mind carrying another device with me from time to time. I wouldn’t be bringing it with me all the time anywhere I go, just when I knew there would be time to use it. Most of the time it will be used just sitting on various couches and chairs around the house, outside and on public transport. And that’s (along with a slight price difference) also the reason I’ll be getting the wifi-only version. Mobiles suck at anything other than super-casual games like Doodle Jump.

    • Hand waving in the air.

    • So much so that it deserves an old skool song to go with it ;)

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyX9bOAOH-I

    • Hand is right in the air.

    • Standing with Hands up

    • *raises body*

    • Don’t want a Vita, but I’d buy an NGP.

    • defo want vita. Day one.

    • I wan’t one hand is up

    • For some reason, I need to quote the JLS Song, over here, and I’m pretty sure you all know which one I’m thinking about. x)

  2. I have one thing to say about this – portable trophy whoring. I know people that go out of their way to buy games just for trophies so being able to collect them whilst out and about seems like a strong selling point. Pretty disappointed it’s not coming to the UK this year though, I really wanted one.

    • You are talking about a very small number of consumers though unfortunately.

      • I just looked at one ps3 trophy site with 113,000 members (not sure how many spam-bots), but I’d say a fairly substantial amount of people will buy it. Even more if you get – platinum trophy “purchased PS Vita”. lol

      • Do you really think that 113,000 is a big number in these terms?

        Add a couple of 00’s and you might be getting somewhere.

      • Well the PSP apparently shifted 185,000 units in the UK on launch, so I don’t know, maybe that is a lot. I’m talking about it’s appeal to a specific target market, which, whilst small is still only a proportion of the total number of people that will purchase. Plus that member count was for one website, and has little bearing on the number of members that would purchase a vita. I was merely indicating the importance of such a feature. At £249, isn’t that £28.1 million though?

      • Still nothing numbers for a company the size of Sony and the outlay on the development and manufacturing of the console itself.

        If Sony only managed to shift 185,000 UK PSP units back in the day when there was no real alternative, unlike now, how many Vita’s do you reckon they are going to sell on day 1?

        I hope i am wrong and it sells well and gets a lot of support from third party developers as well as SCEE, but i just can’t see it happening. Too much has changed in the world of mobile gaming and Sony aren’t keeping up IMHO.

  3. I recently got an Android phone, and aside from the simple stuff like Flight Control, Angry Birds and the like, the games are largely unplayable with only a touch screen and tilt controls.

    In fact, playing games on the phone – or rather, TRYING to play games on it – has only served to convince me that there is very much a NEED for a dedicated portable gaming platform, and as such, I will be only too happy to carry my Desire S and my Vita wherever I may go.

    I’d never heard of this company before today, so I looked up their website. Judging by the games they’ve produced so far, I don’t think I or the PS Vita will miss them if they don’t want to develop for it. We’ll be too busy playing real games.

    • Couldn’t agree more with everything above.

    • Absolutely, nothing beats physical controls.

  4. This debate has happened repeatedly, both in the run up to the 3DS and now the Vita. Hardcore gamers, like the ones that frequent gaming websites, are always going to be a smaller and more interested market. On the whole though, I have to agree that the masses want more convenient and cheaper mobile gaming.

    • That is the reason that the Vita will not be a massive success. It’s too expensive and so are the games for the ‘casual’ gamer. This is the reason the 3DS is not doing as well as expected.
      I will be getting the Vita on day one and I imagine that most hardcore gamers etc will. Casual gamers on the otherhand will not bother and probably never will. They will stay with their phones etc to ‘game’ on. These are the people that Sony need to pull in to make it a great success and to keep the third party support coming.

      • The reason that the 3DS isn’t doing well is because Nintendo forgot to make any games. Nobody is going to buy a Nintendo console without there being a new big-name, first-party game.

        I’ve bought pretty much every Nintendo console (always after saying I wouldn’t), but then one of those games always convinces me.

  5. “People don’t want to carry more than one thing in their pocket.” Christ, you should see the stuff I carry with me. I’m like a branch of Currys.

  6. Are we sure he’s not mistaking “PS Vita” for “UFC Trainer”? That was a car wreck.

    • Well said.

    • NICE. A game that freezes every other workout should not be sold, or should have at least been updated :l.

  7. Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

  8. From a mainstream and worldwide sales point of view, he makes perfect sense. The majority of people won’t care about Vita. But a small amount of people (including me) don’t want crappy little angry bird games, or endless pac man and tetris rip-offs. I for one want a Vita because it has PROPER GAMES that appeal to me. and that is who Vita is aimed towards, people who want real games.

    • TBH gaming on Android/IOS has evolved well past pac man/tetris copies so I’m not sure that’s very fair. I personally enjoy angry birds as a way of passing time in certain circumstances, it is a beatifully simple idea with great presentatation and huge replay value.

      I too crave Vita as my preferred game types require dual analogue sticks and plenty of buttons to work properly. FPS, driving and fighting/beat-em-up games just do not work on a touch screen and never will. The problem is that i don’t think there are enough of us out there who feel this way and I can see Vita becoming another expensive paperweight with lacklustre developer support and pricey media/accessories within 6-12 months of launch.

  9. I dont think portable consoles have died, if anything Nintendo did not advance on what a portable console should be in this age, and have consequently suffered. Portable consoles have never necessarily been for the average joe, and with current mobile phones it will be even less so. BUT, it doesn’t matter, because the ACTUAL gamers market, like people here, understand this gap in the market that they make, and the PS Vita will thrive on the customers that understand it best.

  10. I reckon he’s wrong.
    There will always be a market, it’s just not as big as it was.
    If you couldn’t make money selling a product like this, Apple wouldn’t still be making iPods alongside the iPhone.

    I still think it strange that Sony or Sony Ericsson haven’t launched a Vita level Xperia Play console though.
    That would have the potential to blow away the market. Definitely the Android side anyway, and a large portion of Apple’s too, I’d say.

    • Don’t agree I’m afraid.

      1) The iPhone costs £500 + and requires a contract to be taken out with a mobile phone company, so an offline alternative for 1/3 of the price (iPod Touch) with much of the functionality and wi-fi connectivity makes sense.

      2) A proper portable gaming console is always going to be too big to also function as a useable mobile phone for the majority of people. If I added dual analogues and physical buttons/triggers to my Desire HD for example it would look ridiculous and wouldnt fit in my pocket anymore.

      3) It would never touch Apple’s market share as they have the image and advertising side of the market sewn up, something which Sony is particularly bad at.

      • “The iPhone costs £500 + and requires a contract”

        I got mine for about £170 with a contract.

      • Yeah, if you get an iPhone contract it’ll cost way less.
        And all it would take is some clever design.
        You wouldn’t take a Desire HD and lob the controls on top, you’d start with the controls and go from there. With proper planning, it could easily work.

      • Apologies, what I meant to say was “costs £500+ or requires an expensive mobile phone contract at circa £30 a month for 18 months + (i know as my wife has one).

        My example of a Desire HD was that it is basically just a 4.3 ” screen and nothing more (which for me is the minimum screen size for decent portable gaming) and is already bigger than the majority of people want to carry around. If you add physical controls etc. it would have to grow in all directions and get heavier, therefore no longer being something that can be thrown in your pocket or comfortably held to your ear for any length of time.

    • I don’t really partake in much mobile gaming but enjoy the freedom I have with my iPhone if I fancy a game of Plants Vs Zombies when I wake up on a quiet Sunday morning and can’t be arsed to get out of bed!

      The iPhone will always suffer without real controls/buttons but it’s not to a large enough detriment for it to affect the market-share it’s furiously grabbing. The very thing the iPhone is known for is being a great smart phone and having wonderful apps/games on it. The Vita is for the more enthusiastic mobile gamer (and obviously the hardcore gamer) but the latter demographics are in the minority so Apple don’t seem to worry about it too much. They’re busy making money with the casual player.

      Both have a place in the industry but I want Sony to learn from Apple and bring us incredible games – from Uncharted all the way down to the £1 titles that we’ve grown to love on the likes of iTunes Store.

      • If Sony can keep the prices of Minis down then they could offer a viable alternative for more casual gamers. At the moment though, most are too expensive for what they are.

      • I want a mini with a resolution higher than Deluxe Paint!

Comments are now closed for this post.