Do you honestly believe the problem with the Vita is commitment? I'm not sure what they could do to make a handheld console in this environment appealing aside from taking an absolute bath on the hardware. The most common thing I hear from kids these days is "Mom/Dad can I use your phone?"
IMO, what you're describing is just another consequence from the lack of commitment.
It's not the environment, it's just that Sony completely failed to see what brought profit from the original PSP.
Take a look at the
PS Vita's top-rated games and you'll find:
- Casual games like plants vs. zombies, lumines, super stardust, etc.
- A MGS remake
Now look at
what brought most of the money for the PSP:
- Monster Hunter
- Gran Turismo
- God of War
- GTA
- Final Fantasy VII: Crysis Core
No wonder the Vita is a failure so far!
They're trying to strike Android in what Android has best: casual games.
Of course I'm not going to purchase a heavy and bulky console to play the exact same type of games that I can purchase in Google Play for 99 cents, in the smartphone that I
have to carry with me everyday.
And it's impossible to compete with Google Play/app market in price, due to their distribution channels.
This is just stupid, it looks like not even a single executive at Sony ever learned a thing about
strategy.
Of course Android/iOS is their main competition right now. But they can't go head-on striking those platforms at what they do best. Sony should only strike them at what they can't do yet: AAA games with good graphics, stories/characters with depth, high production values.
It's either that or just give up on the whole thing. They won't beat them on the casuals, period.
It's not a different battle this time than it was in 2005. The NDS already took over the casuals in the last decade and the PSP brought Sony tons of money anyways. It's Nintendo who should be the most affected by Android and iOS. Not Sony.
Instead, just look at the most successful games for the PSP. How many of those franchises have been released for the Vita? Zero.
And how many of those same best-selling genres/franchises have been announced during E3 2012? Zero.
The only way to make the Vita an appealing console is to:
1 - Start making AAA games for the console,
and/or
2 - Allow a dual-boot with full-fledged Android, getting access to Google Play's contents (video, music, etc) and increasing the console's value as a powerful and cheap tablet that could rival even the Nexus 7 in sales.
Given Sony's generalized over-greediness, number 2 is less likely to happen.
They were even stupid enough to force a proprietary mass storage media onto the consumer, again.