Sony’s boss is adamant that now isn’t the time to cut the PS Vita’s price, despite less than stellar sales figures and a game line-up that hardly screams “buy me right now George”.
“Oh, absolutely.” said Yoshida replied when he was asked whether it was too soon for a price cut. “From the value for money standpoint, we think we have a good price for what the system is.”
“And our priority is to achieve the potential through more games and services.”
For whatever reason, though, SCEA opted to spend twenty minutes of their E3 conference boring the audience with an interactive book, rather than showcasing what the Vita can do and what’s coming up for Sony’s recently launched handheld.
Hope isn’t all lost though – long term things might happen.
“Of course people who are looking to buy are also talking about the price of PS Vita,” he added, “especially when they have to buy a memory card as well. That’s something we have to spend time to cost reduce and address in the future.”
Sony say they have 25 games playable on the show floor. Where the lion’s share of the gaming populace won’t be able to play them or even look at them. Unlike, for example, during a globally streamed press conference.
“I’m getting lots of tweets from people saying, ‘where are PS Vita games?'” said Yoshida about the conference. That was, in retrospect, our fault – not looking at every angle when we designed the programme for the show.”
“We could have spent more time – probably we should – showing off those games coming out this year,” he admitted.
steverouse1234
I was hoping for a PS Plus & Vita tie in, but I guess I will have to just reminice about what might I have been like I did with the PSP for all those years.
Watchful
Yoshida-san, I love my PS Vita but please show me the games that will keep me loving it in six and twelve months time. And yes, you absolutely should have spent more time on Vita in your conference.
gazzagb
Sony only showed 1 Vita game that I really want – Assassins Creed. Revealing the title for the COD game was pointless and clearly means it’s not at a stage where Acti want to show it off.
And by not announcing a price-cut, or at least a line-up of great games, Sony just reaffirm my view that Vita is not worth £200 and is blatantly overpriced.
humanfish
I’m selling my Vita I think. Maybe I’ll buy another one at this tune next year, when we really will have an idea if what Sony are planning for the device (was it truly built with PS4 in mind?)
Time to see what I’ll get for the thing.
LTG Davey
I traded mine in a week or so ago along with my PS3 and came out with just under £300. About £120 for the PS3 and £180 for the Vita. Not brilliant but not terrible. Good luck :)
Smallville2106
How is it possible for them to keep botching things up?
cam the man
There definitely need a few more ‘great’ games for Vita. There’s nowt on the horizon that says ‘wow I want that’ for me.
james_m2603
UGH.
That is all.
XisTG
I’m surprised he can put his pants on in the morning.
IAmJacksMedullaOblongata
Cool, you keep it at that price, and I’ll keep not buying it.
In fact, here’s a BETTER idea. Keep it at that price, but throw in a free memory card and for the love of all that is holy start driving down the price of the games. I get that they’re practically “console quality” games on the go but people have a hard time swallowing £40 for a mobile game.
I didn’t say it would be easy but Sony need to do something to kickstart sales.
IAmJacksMedullaOblongata
I just realised Yoshida looks a bit like Kim Jong-un.
This is not good.