Activision’s outspoken head Bobby Kotick has commented on PS Vita, via an interesting interview in The Guardian.
“There will always be a need for specialised hardware to satisfy the needs of gamers,” he says. Referring to Vita specifically, he calls it a “fantastic piece of hardware.”
“Technically, we’re super excited about what we can do on it, it’s really something incredible. The question is,” he asks, “where is the market?”
“I think the pricing was surprisingly affordable, the product itself is really great – so the questions is, is there a need in the marketplace for a very specialised portable device of that capability?”
It’s an interesting question, but at such a low price point and with some killer games lined up for launch (Uncharted, WipEout, LBP) there’s hopefully huge demand.
“Hopefully there will be,” he continues, “because it’s a really nice product and its very well differentiated from what you can get in even the most capable smartphone or tablet today.”
You can read the whole thing here.
Michael
My local market is in a dodgy part of town.
Tuffcub
If he cant see a market why are they wasting money on COD for it?
Jaffa-the-Cake
I guess they’ve got billions spare from the console COD’s so even if it doesn’t pay off they’re relatively less exposed. its worth the risk, especially if vita can play console ports.
TheDemocrodile
as far as i can tell (disappointingly) cod is the market, release it and vita will be an amazing success, dont and it wont
aerobes
What a strange thing to say. The rest of his thoughts seem quite quite positive.
aerobes
quite quite? That’s super quite.
bunimomike
Actually, I think he has a very good point. The mobile market has changed drastically from when the PSP was initially launched. We’re seeing smartphones (more importantly, the iPhone) have a bigger financial market than the PSP for mobile gaming. We’re also seeing how people very often want simple ‘pick up and play’ games akin to the ones we enjoy on the PSN. With that in mind, Sony have to be careful in how they could potentially steer developers into (hopefully) the right direction when it comes to what games to bring out for it.
Thankfully, it appears to be so packed with features that we’ll see a bit of everything.
aerobes
That’s true. I’m undecided on the machine myself until I learn more about it.
I’m hoping it’s more like PS3 on the move rather than bearing any relation to any sort of smartphone or tablet.
One thing that I’ll be hoping is as well as being a fully functional standalone device, it’s compatibility with PS3 is far more intertwined than that of PSP.
It’d be an interesting move to be able to partially or fully be able to download a PS3 game onto the device to play in some way.
skibadee
never got a PSP 100% will be getting the Vita it oozes style imo, plus will not be getting a COD game for it. if something is out of place next year it is the wiiu.
Tuffcub
Hvaing just got a PSP (late, I know) I find it ifinatley better than silly Iphone games.
colmshan1990
I don’t believe a Call of Duty Vita game featured at E3…
A sign of them having second thoughts?
Still, I reckon there could be a tremendous market for this. I reckon that the Vita is in a good position to become my principal gaming platform, ahead of my PS3, just as PSP edged out PS2 all those 6 years ago.
TheDemocrodile
my only vita worry is security, it needs to be locked up tighter than fort knox, the hacking community are foaming at the mouth to have a go at it as soon as its released and i dont want a repeat of the psp hacking frenzy to spoil my new machine.
Kovacs
I can’t believe The Guardian got “its” and “it’s” wrong. Actually, no, scratch that. I can believe it.
Youles
There were CoD games on PSP and DS – so hopefully for PSVita!
Could defo see Treyach doing an online Zombie-only game for the Vita
jimmy-google
COD online multiplayer anywhere with decent controls. That will sell a bucket load of PSVs
Crocadillian
I think it will be fine, just because the mass market is all over tablets and smartphones doesn’t mean this niche gamer market wont. I only say niche in the broad scope of the electronics market, but there are still tens of millions of people that actively use game consoles.