This week, Sony is releasing the PS Vita, a portable gaming device. It comes with a bunch of cameras, several touch-sensitive surfaces, and various games from Sony's fairly extensive library of franchises. It's also entering a market where its very existence is being question, and it has a much more difficult hill to climb than its predecessor, the Playstation Portable, or PSP.
Even five years ago, these portable devices made a great deal of sense. It was something to take with you on trips or if you had a lengthy commute, a fun way to pass the time. The problem is, in the intervening years, phones have become able to play assorted games that are a great way to pass the time, and are even more convenient, since most people will have them on their person anyway. Not myself, of course, since my phone tends to be forgotten either on the kitchen counter or my desk, but normal people tend to carry their phone with them. That means that for a lot of people, they have a new distraction, and one that they have anyway.
Which isn't to say that there isn't a market. Young children can't get a phone contract, so they're a great market for such a device, but then we run into new problems. Thing is, young children aren't known for their vast stores of wealth, and will need their parents to buy them any devices. Nintendo, Sony's main competitor in this sphere, learned this the hard way, as their 3DS console - notable mostly for its 3D screen - launched quite badly. The reason, in the end, was cost, and while it sold well after several price drops, nobody wanted to spend over $200 on the system. The cheapest Vita on the market is $250.
Keep in mind, again, that this market is going to face an uphill battle with teenagers or adults. If you already have a fancy phone, it becomes less interesting to have a portable device dedicated to games. So it might be viewed as an error in judgement for Sony to be pushing the Vita towards that market, rather than making something that the much younger crowd can get excited about. The launch lineup is pitched quite heavily towards teens and adults, but will those people want one? They are going after a market which is going to be significantly harder to actually get buying their product, since they need to convince them to get yet another device.
There will be the argument that the games on the Vita will be better than most of the games available on the phones, and I agree. Given that it has regular buttons in addition to touch surfaces it becomes easier to make games that control well. It's also a more powerful console overall, and something which gives developers much more freedom. This is true, but it doesn't matter very much. If someone's looking for the best games, they're going to go home, where they have a big television or computer monitor, and a device that's more powerful than the portable device can manage. It's stuck in the middle ground between the convenient distraction and the dedicated device.
I don't want to declare the Vita dead on arrival, but I do think it's going to have a difficult time convincing people that it is a worthwhile system. It becomes difficult to justify an in-between device when you can get your distractions in many more convenient places. Interesting that something named Vita could struggle to live.
