PS Vita Documentary: The History of Sony's Coolest Failure.

[Music] i think that we need to approach change at sony from a multitude of different directions we need to be faster at decision-making we need to be faster at execution we also need to have a lot more of a focus on what our core businesses for sony are going to be going forward into the future and i've identified those as being the video game and network services the earliest rumors of a successor to the psp started around 2009 with sources close to the project claiming the existence of psp2 was real stronger rumors came to fruition in 2010 when it was reported during the tokyo game show that sony had officially unveiled the hardware internally at a very private meeting in tokyo it wasn't long after that when it was being reported that software development kits were being sent out to developers but perhaps the biggest break in the streak of psp2 rumors were leaked photos of an early development kit secured by vg247 the device was said to be as powerful as the 360 with twin analog sticks an hd screen forward and rear cameras and a back track pad final specs were not confirmed but the kit did reveal a sliding mechanism design much like the psp go however it was quickly discovered that sony switched back to a psp-1000 like form factor to keep the unit from overheating the device was all but confirmed once ea and many other smaller developers openly admitted that they had the device and they were working away on it [Music] with the looming rumors floating around sony was quick to deny any and all speculation but was open to discussing their goals with future hardware in the portable space at the time sony computer entertainment ceo kaz harai had mentioned sony was planning on offering various play styles moving forward one that could cater to smartphone-like touch-based experiences and more traditional games that require buttons and thumb sticks but at the same time he also made the distinction that games approaching those different spectrums focus on different audiences entirely and he wasn't terribly concerned with the advent of phones and tablets on the rise [Music] it's now january 27 2011. sony holds a playstation meeting in tokyo japan the announcement is official psp2 is announced with the code name ngp next generation portable the company spends an hour and a half detailing the device showing off games the ui and having publishers like sega and activision come on stage to pledge their support for the device but much of what was rumored is shown before the world's eyes ngp would have an oled screen two thumb sticks a front and back touch pad a front and rear camera use cartridges instead of umd's and tout visuals that rival the playstation 3. the system would even be offered in a variant that had a 3g connection shortly after the initial product reveal from sce ceo kaz harai sony worldwide studio shuhei yoshida took the stage to play a small scissor reel of games that would be coming to the ngp and the clip was nothing short of incredibly promising the footage included hotshots golf wipeout uncharted kill zone resistance and many more original games all completely original titles with a console quality approach the demo also included games that would make use of both the front and rear touchscreens as well as an accelerometer and ar with the cameras the aim was the best of both worlds much like kazharai had mentioned before formally announcing the ngp not too long prior after the reel of footage the company jumps right into a demo of uncharted golden abyss a completely new uncharted game made from the ground up on ngp witnessing such a graphically intensive game like uncharted play on the go was a surreal moment for many gamers around the world but sony was quick to show off how drake could now be controlled up a rope by using your fingers against the back touchpad after uncharted they showed off little deviants an original title out of sony's now defunct big big studios the game was centered entirely around sony's back touch pad sony's vision for the njp was more broadly approached after this by demoing the system's user interface demonstrating the system's ability to have a connected friends list a playstation storefront and social space for game pages they reveal near a location-based app for the ngp that would track distance and collect data for digital game goods it would track your friend's habits and deliver or trade digital goods between other users sony then invited capcom on stage to show off monster hunter portable 3 one of the most successful psp games being played on the mgp the system was now confirmed to be backwards compatible with psp titles that were purchased digitally the conference ended with the news that an original call of duty was planned for the system a game that would be more tailored to the platform due to the new inclusion of two thumb sticks with the news of a call of duty console experience being playable on the go the ngp was looking built for success that we announced today it's very important that we have a very stable platform that is in for the long haul and that means that we're providing a very compelling value to the consumer in that once they invest in our products it doesn't go by the wayside in two years or three years but they're able to really enjoy that particular console for a very long time and it's my expectation that uh you know the ngp is going to have a similar sort of life life span if you will uh in the portable space as well let's talk about how this technology that's developed within e3 2011 was an important show for sony just as they were seeing major success with playstation 3 they had a month-long playstation network outage to address not only that but they had to convince everyone in the room and everyone watching why ngp was going to be the next great portable they started with officially naming the device playstation vita what followed was an excellent showing of uncharted golden abyss mod nation racers little big planet and the announcement of street fighter cross tekken coming to the platform as well most notably ken levine the creator of bioshock also made a promising announcement it's a bit of a a pet project of irrationals and it's set in the bioshock universe and this has been kicking around for a few years now and it's very early days and the design is still evolving but recently we found the right home for it it's on this guy mgp and so this is going to be interesting too a new ip was also announced to demonstrate one of sony's greatest visions for the vita ruin an action rpg was demoed on ps vita and ps3 a game where you could save and continue your play on the other consoles seamlessly as a creative venture between sony san diego and idol mines this was very well received amongst viewers at the very end of the show it was time for ceo kaz harai to detail the system's price and i'm happy to announce that the wi-fi only model will retail for 249 dollars yeah the 3g wi-fi model will retail for 299 playstation vita will revolutionize the portable entertainment experience november 2011 it's learned that ps vita's new proprietary memory cards are fairly expensive and essentially required without any onboard memory in most games requiring storage for installs or save files a new cost is revealed to eager buyers of sony's latest handheld at minimum twenty dollars for a four gigabyte card up to one hundred dollars for a 32 gigabyte card nearly half the price of the system for the highest storage option eight gigabyte and 16 gigabyte cards would also cost 30 and 60 dollars respectively a move that didn't sit well with consumers but a move chosen specifically from sony to have more control and security to combat piracy one of the biggest problems the psp faces many years on the market [Music] december 17 2011 playstation vita officially launches in japan with 26 games the most launch games for any hardware launch ever at the time with strong titles like uncharted deskgaia3 hotshots ridge racer katamari the system went on to sell 300 000 units in its first week of availability with sony's recent tgs remarks that over 100 games were in development hopes were high that the system was poised to do well however after a few weeks sales started to decline rapidly mellowing out to around 12 000 units a week now it was time for the north american and european launches on february 15 2012 a first edition bundle was released and a week later on the 22nd the platform officially launched after a month the system sold roughly 200 000 units in the united states march was worse with around 50 000 units by the end of february however the communal of total for the platform was around 1.2 million the rest of 2012 saw a multitude of high-profile games being released for the system games like gravity rush little big planet persona 4 golden and assassin's creed 3 liberation all of which were received well two highly anticipated games resistance burning skies and call of duty black ops declassified were major disappointments both by developer instigate games formerly known as nihilistic software they had previously also done playstation move heroes for sony in 2011 and were very likely time constrained after only wrapping up their last project in 2009 giving them only a few years to release three games by the end of 2012 sony sold roughly 4 million playstation vitas 2013 was a turning point for ps vita sony has stopped reporting sales figures never a good sign from a hardware manufacturer many publishers are no longer committing to developing for the platform and sony was now gearing up for something far more substantial and important the playstation 4. it was announced february 20th at a meeting in new york city all eyes were officially moved over to the eighth generation of video game consoles but the vita was not left astray it played a key role in the ps4 vision every ps4 game was announced to be remote playable on vita a feature which was immediately demonstrated and touted due to the limited ability the feature had back with the ps3 and psp fast forward a few months and sony officially slashes the price 200 in north america and 200 euro in europe memory cards also saw a slightly reduced price across the board it only took another month for sony to make another substantial vita announcement ps vita pch2000 was announced in early september during a pre-tgs conference the new machine is 20 thinner and 15 percent lighter it has one gigabyte of internal storage and battery life was extended by one hour the oled screen was removed in favor of an lcd screen and the rear touch pad size was reduced a new 64 gigabyte card was also introduced for a steep 100 vita 2000 was scheduled for an october 10th release in japan available in multiple colors during this time sony also announced the ps vita tv a micro console that runs the ps vita's operating system and connects to your television allowing users to play ps vita games on the tv with a dualshock 3. the console was priced at 100 and mainly intended to penetrate asian territories with its cheap entry price and tv streaming services but it was also widely touted as a great companion device to the playstation 4 as the vita tv could also use remote play much like a regular vita except now you'd just be playing ps4 on another tv without the actual ps4 console playstation vita tv was due for release november 14 2013 [Music] with the ps4 launched and finding immediate success the vita was seeing an entirely different change altogether larger budget games were vanishing and a plethora of independent smaller scale games were releasing frequently on the playstation store through 2014 this change was solidified with sony's approach to the handheld taking action on the current state of sales the company shifted focus sony's head of worldwide studio shuhei oshida had responded to the indie boom on vita by confirming that sony would be releasing fewer first party games and instead focus on third party sony's director of product planning and platform software innovation don mesa discussed in may 2014 that aaa economics don't work anymore on vita and that instead of native aaa vita games you could use remote play to play ps4 games or stream ps3 games on ps now sony's streaming service that was now confirmed to be coming to vita sony was now painting vita as a companion device in the playstation landscape rather than a gaming device of its own but with the launch and early months of playstation 4 vita benefited greatly from one dramatically different approach sony was heavily focusing on independent developers the ps4 was designed around x86 and was molded around what developers wanted out of next generation hardware it was meant to be easy and accessible by any and all teams and with this came a forward-thinking initiative to approach developers that typically wouldn't develop for consoles and offer them free sdks funding or payment plans to help get their games on playstation with ps4 doing so well this often encouraged many teams to also release ps vita versions of their games usually day and date with ps4 versions this quickly popularized sony's cross buy cross play and cross save features you buy one version of said game you get the other version for free you could save on one game and continue on the other and you could sometimes play against or with the other version many smaller developers quickly realized that with vita they could make money their budgets weren't that high and so vita sales typically exceeded the overhead one big proponent to constant vita releases was shaheed ahmad and gio corsi ahmad was the strategic content director for sony computer entertainment europe and corsi is the director of third party production both their jobs were in a nutshell get games on playstation and many vita releases lead back to both of them games like nuclear throne spelunky txk proteus ali ali and more all come thanks to shaheed's work gio corsi was also known to ask at the beginning of any project if the developer would be open to a vita version and with that came a steady amount of constant releases for a platform that on paper was not selling very well it was simply solidified what sony had mentioned during their 2013 e3 press conference which was that vita buyers are very dedicated to the platform in the us vita owners have on average purchased more than 10 games japan was a slightly different story while small budget indie games were powering the platform in the west the east was seeing healthier sales figures and a steady stream of japanese games sony's last major ps vita game freedom wars released june 26 2014 and sold 188 000 copies in its first week in japan despite this vida's biggest downfall in japan was capcom's decision to release monster hunter 4 on the 3ds a series that's widely popular in the territory and single-handedly helped the psp outsold the ds for the entire year of 2010 but many other games helped the platform keep it afloat games like danganronpa persona 4 ease final fantasy 10 remaster and many visual novels pushes the system sales to the point of market relevancy minecraft was perhaps one of the biggest games selling over a million copies in japan up to the present day 2015 was the beginning of what would be a heavy decline for ps vita during e3 and again shortly after e3 sony confirmed they are no longer working on any aaa games for their own platform the ps vita tv which was named playstation tv in the west was officially discontinued near the gps gps-based app that sony touted at launch was also discontinued and while 2015 had the same steady release of quality indian japanese games the platform was slowly fading into obscurity games like warriors lair and bioshock vita had long been canceled many publishers have left or never even started and vita's core services like social apps and playstation mobile were now being shut down in september 2015 sony worldwide studios president shuhei oshida sat down with ollie welsh during egx 2015 to talk about his 20 years at playstation during which shuhei was questioned about the possibility of a ps vita 2. because people have you know mobile phones smartphones and it's so easy to just play games on smartphones and most of games on smartphones are free so i hope like many of you that this culture of playing portable games continued but the the climate is not healthy for now because of the huge dominance of mobile gaming by early 2016 ps vita tv was now discontinued in asia worldwide sales for the platform were somewhere around 12 to 13 million after four years on the market despite abysmal sales and the closure of many services sony continued manufacturing and general third-party support games continued to release on a regular basis and the system even saw a full release for world of final fantasy in october 2016 day in date with the ps4 version but as the months progressed big shows like e3 tgs paris games week and even psx passed by with very little mention of vita as the company focuses primarily on the very successful ps4 and their very early entry into the vr space with psvr and in march specifically sony opened a new division called forward works this company would instead work on playstation games for ios and android early 2017 started off with two things the closure of playstation now on ps vita and the release of nintendo switch a platform which by and large makes vita more irrelevant than ever before however by june 2017 sony interactive entertainment america president and ceo sean laden said vita is still a viable platform though he openly admitted it couldn't get over the hump in america and europe he said the platform is still viable in japanese and asian markets and that it's still his favorite portable and he travels with it all the time but for gamers and even smaller developers nintendo switch was now the place to look for portable gaming for the remainder of the year all eyes were on the switch as the platform started to see a substantial amount of support from independent developers fast forward to early 2018 and sony announces there will no longer be ps3 or vita games added to the instant game collection for playstation plus after march 2019. a few months later sony announces physical game cartridges for vita will no longer be produced by 2019 for north america and europe but they will continue for japan beyond 2019. along this sentiment sony interactive entertainment president ceo john kodera gave the ps vita a general deadline of 2020 admitting that the platform is essentially over in america and europe but will miraculously continue another two years in japan today presently playstation vita has sold somewhere around 16 million units after six [Music] years playstation vita was set for success and sony missed the mark expensive proprietary memory cards non-existent marketing and a quick drop in first party support all halted the platform's growth substantially and while all those ring true sony still managed to push out uncharted hotshots golf little big planet kill zone tear away soul sacrifice gravity rush and a few third-party aaa games all within the first two years it could download psp games and use the second stick to remap old games and make them better it supported many ps1 classics from the playstation store and got native remasters for some of the very best ps2 games the platform had everything for success and yet couldn't make a fraction of the impact the psp did it launched with arguably far better games than the playstation 3 dead with a much smaller price tag and ultimately didn't come close to that either while the 3ds did quite well it hasn't even reached half the sales of its predecessor it begs the question was sony entirely to blame or did market conditions also dramatically harm the vita it was likely both and yet for a platform that sold so little it managed to have a constant stream of games for a full life cycle with developers who made a living on it and fans who were incredibly vocal and supportive and it continues to receive new games today playstation vita may have failed but it failed gracefully [Music] you

Channel: Mystic

Views: 820,470

Keywords: PS Vita, PS Vita Failure, PS Vita Documentary, PlayStation Vita, PSVita Documentary, PS Vita History, History of PS Vita, PS Vita Slim, PCH 2000, PS Vita PCH-2000, Review, Overview, OLED, LCD, OLED vs LCD, Vita games, 2018 Vita Games, Vita Launch, PS Vita launch, Sony, Sony Interactive Entertainment, PS Vita 2, Vita 2, PSP2, PSP, PlayStation Portable, Shuhei Yoshida, Kaz Hirai, Gaming, Portable Gaming, Nintendo Switch, Vita vs Switch, PS Vita vs Nintendo Switch, Nintendo

Id: J5OS5YFuBOE

Length: 22min 57sec (1377 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

The worst thing is that, as Kaz Hirai says in the beginning, up until this point PlayStation had been known for strong first party support that extends to almost a decade into each console lifecycle, many more years longer than any other platform. And then Sony Playstation destroyed that reputation just to save a buck. Had they chosen to use PS4 profits or profits from other divisions to help keep the Vita afloat, they could have saved their reputation as a strong supported gaming brand. Now that is no longer true, and moving forward into PS5 or PSV2, gamers like myself aren't so confident in that if a Sony Playstation platform doesn't perform as they expect they will simply cut off support leaving existing customers out to dry. If I'm going to spend $250+ on a gaming console, that is an investment into gaming that I expect to last for many years due to company-customer loyalty. At the end of the day we are not just numbers on a stock ticker or sales report. Low performing hardware/software sales may hurt your company, but bad customer service will surely destroy your company.

[u/anbu-black-ops]

I am new to vita owner, I sometimes amaze how great this machine is. It still wows me. From it's rear and front touch screens to the user interface. For an old machine it still impressive until now.

I don't know how nintendo does it. I wish Vita is as popular as the 3ds. You can still see alot of 3ds games in big retail stores unlike the vita.

[u/[deleted]]

I love my vita

[u/Tjoeb123]

You make great content, Ryan, but I think you missed a few things:

• Sony forgetting about the Vita started, I think, during the E3 following the PS4's announcement.

• PS1 classics on Vita was an absolute shitshow. It's not so bad now, but when the feature first came out, NA had like 9 games, EU had 20, and JP 100....I think. Regions got games that other regions did not. And while we did get most of the classics (FF PS1 trilogy, MGS, The Legend of Dragoon, Klonoa, Rayman), Sony and most developers just gave up putting more PS1 classics on it. Some 3rd party developers Activi$ion Blizzard even opted for complete remasters of their Crash-ic series on consoles and leaving the PS1 originals Spyroling outside North America.

• The Switch is basically the Vita's successor, except it wasn't made by Sony.

[u/[deleted]]

Vita is no Mylo but more like Betamax

[u/[deleted]]

I'm sorry friends, but Sony's coolest failure is the Xperia Play.

[u/keematt]

Funny that they talked about supporting the console for years to come, then stop supporting it after 3 years lmao.

[u/Mightywingnut]

Lesson for me in this video is that software was to blame. Yeah the memory card situation was bad, but what might have happened if Call of Duty was a good game. What if Bioshock Infinite was released and Ruin. Promises made for software and not delivered were just not going to ever give buyers confidence in the Vita. Maybe the hardware never matched the ambition, though Killzone is so good, it's hard to believe that other developers couldn't pull off similarly great titles.

[u/[deleted]]

I wouldn't consider it a failure. It's still going and has a huge library of games. A failure would mean they stopped supporting the system completely and companies stopped making games for it.