After a slow initial start, it looks like the Vita is picking up steam. It feels like every day, some new high profile indie game is announced for the system. However, what I find particularly interesting is how the system is doing in Japan.
Vita System Sales for the Week + Major Vita Game Launches
2013:
Week 1 – 33k
Week 2 – 11k
Week 3 – 9k
Week 4 – 9k. Demon Gaze (25k), Genkai Totsuki Monster Monpiece (24k)
Week 5 – 9k.
Week 6 – 8k.
Week 7 – 8k.
Week 8 – 11k.
Week 9 – 62k. Senran Kagura (94k), Phantasy Star Online 2 (61k)
Week 10 – 63k. Soul Sacrifice (114k), Tales of Hearts R (55k)
Week 11 – 36k.
Week 12 – 41k. One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 (60k)
Week 13 – 31k. Muramasa (45k)
As you can see, sales were pretty bad for the early part of the year (minus some holiday spill-over in week 1) but then really picked up in week 9 & 10 with the release of some major new games & a price drop for the system. Due to the recent increase in sales, the Vita is actually the 2nd best selling system in Japan this year (although it’s still FAR behind the best-selling system, the 3DS). However, the big question that everyone’s asking right now (other than when will Sony of America drop the price here) is at what level will the Vita stabilize? Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of new games coming out for the system over the next 2 months so it’s quite possible that this recent surge of sales could be short-lived indeed. My personal belief is that the system will stabilize in the 20k-25k range but we’ll see.
The Vita needs a little extra space during install, but not twice as much. The last 1.5 GB game I installed wanted 1627 MB space. On the 4 GB Card that came with my Vita Bundle, I could install every Persona game with the exception of P4G which I bought as a physical game. That’s a whole lot of Persona, enough to keep you occupied, and there was even space left for Sine Mora and Gaia Seed 🙂
I do agree that the memory card IS an issue, I’d rather see them ditch the gimmicky 3G and make a 299$ Bundle with a 16GB Card, only leaving the 32GB Card as an accessory to upgrade to.
Game Lineup looks a bit thin, but some nice titles already available (BlazBlue, Wipeout, Little Big Planet, Persona 4 Golden (arguably a remake, yes), Lego LOTR, even that Metal Gear Solid game) or announced (Ys: Foliage Ocean in Celceta (I hope they rebrand it as Memories of Celceta as hinted on Amazon), Final Fantasy X HD, Guilty Gear XX, Tales of Hearts/Innocence)).
Playstation Plus is also a huge thing for the Vita (and the PS3).
I feel that Sony has had a big problem executing in the past year, but they have solid hardware and a better development experience now, so if they play smart they should be able to capitalize on Microsoft’s complete and utter incompetence caused by ongoing wars within their company. A strong Playstation 4 will greatly benefit the Vita, and I can see Sony winning this generations console battle.
That’s sometimes the case with PS3 games, not with Vita games.
Well, maybe somebody here knows the answer, but from what I heard, is even though some games are 3 gigs, you need twice the size of the game available to download and install. That would make the 3 gig games 6 gigs to get and install.
Vita was never dead. People who say it was “dead” after 3 months (when I started hearing that BS) are either idiots or new to the industry.
Every console ever has a period where it picks up steam. And its usually more than just a year.
There are no Vita games even remotely close to 7-8 GBs since those wouldn’t even fit on the smallest memory card at all. There are a few games that are in the 3-3.5GB range like Persona 4 Golden, but most are much smaller than that. And the 32GB card isn’t necessary unless you’re going digital-only AND have to have a bunch of games on at all times.
The problem with the Vita for me is a combination of the price for the system + memory card, and the lack of pretty much any games I want. Until both of those problems are solved, I’m fine with the 3DS XL I picked up for $170 a few months ago.
Sadly that price doesn’t help either. The price of entry is way too high for a handheld. Even at $199, it still requires a near $100 memory stick to use a majority of the games. Reason I say require is because without the biggest memory stick you are forced to delete older games fairly soon. The problem is that Sony chose to make a high def hand-held, with games that can easily get up to 7 or 8 gigabytes big, but they didn’t up the amount of space on their memory sticks, instead keeping them the size you could get for a camera. This either shows a lack of planning, or exploitation of their customers. I think the latter as Sony is bleeding cash nowadays due to all their bad calls in business.
They need to price cut the Vita down to $179.99 to complete with the 3ds XL, and they need to cut down the memory card to 1/3 of its price. They won’t do this, which is why the sales spiked for 2 weeks, and are now tumbling back down. Those few folks who thought it would be nice to own, but it was just a bit too pricey jumped on the bandwagon with the price reduction in Japan, but now the majority who think it is still way overpriced are ignoring it still.
With all the games that have come out recently and are coming out soon, in addition to the ps+ free games I finally took the plunge and got a vita. I bought mine used though for about 1/3 the price of a new system(120). 299 is still way too much for a handheld, they need to get their costs down so they can sell it at 199 in America to succeed I believe.