Sony's NeoGeo Pocket's (PSP2/Vita) business/non technical ramifications talk

[Gradthrawn]

There is no question it will have stiff competition in some of its aspects which of course overlap with phones, pads and pods, but at the same time I think it may have surprisingly little competition in the hardcore gaming space. I think Sony has a good opportunity here.

IMHO, if they can properly support and advertise the cheap $1 - $5 mobile game aspect of the device, along with multi-tasking multimedia functionality you would expect from an iPod Touch, I think they'll put themselves in a good position. If people's first impression of it, however, is a $30 - $40 game, no matter how good, I think it will alienate itself from a large part of the potential market. It may be a portable gaming platform first, media device second but I think it needs to be advertised in the reverse order (and it absolutely must perform as well as a dedicated PMD, while adding functionality in that arena that PMDs can't do yet. Some people are going to be content with, no, insistent on, having one device that can do everything well enough for them. And for those people, they'll have a Smart Phone and call it a day. There's no winning that market for the PSV. But I suspect there are plenty of others out there who don't mind having a phone, and a very good PMD. Some of those people are already going to have an iPhone, and the PSV is facing an incredibly tough sell there unless there's some previously unseen spectacular GUI. But for those without an iPhone... actually, you know what, the more I think about it the more I think they're screwed. They'd have to launch this device as a full featured PMD and gaming device with an interface that's as intuitive and appealing as iOS. Best of luck to them. Mind you, I already have one pre-ordered (Amazon is doing pre-orders for those interested, as well as other stores). But I'm gadget whore. You just need an OLED screen on your device to get my sell.

 

[patsu]

Vita's not a tablet. Sony will be looking to emulate the DS's success. The PSP was abandoned by Sony to prop up the ps3. SCEI is now functioning as a normal company again. Media, analysts, you will soon realise they're talking bunkum about the mobile space .

Oh no... No ! I am not suggesting that Vita is a tablet. It needs to offer its own unique experiences that can compete with the iPad ecosystem. That's what I meant.

Will talk about the specifics later. I am thinking of where to take my family today. \^o^/

 

[wco81]

Vita will have a good launch but wouldn't be surprised if it saw a fast drop in sales like the 3DS, which went from like 3.6 million in the first quarter of sales to 710k in the second quarter. Nintendo had to back off the 16 million forecast.

You knew even the launch sales didn't meet expectations when there were all kinds of promotions available along with inventory.

I'm sure both 3DS and Vita will reach tens of millions in accumulated sales in several years. But consider that Apple sold 20 million iPhones in the most recent quarter, for a design which is a year old. And then you have tens of millions of other smart phones being sold as well. And soon tens of millions of tablets sold each quarter.

So where does a $250 dedicated gaming device fit in? For people who buy smart phones and tablets every 2 years, that $250 gaming device has to offer something really unique. Games like Uncharted are nice but will it sell systems when you can have a better Uncharted experience on the tens of millions of PS3s already out there?

 

[Arwin]

I'm sure we'll find out ... many iPhones are company phones, used for email primarily. Personally I don't think there is all that much overlap between people who had a PSP for games and who now use an iPhone for games.

Sony doesn't need to compete with the iOS devices necessarily, but out of all of them I think its main competition is the iPod, not the iPhone, and only to a much lesser extent the iPad. How much the two will manage to compete will depend a lot on how close of an experience Sony can manage to deliver compared to iTunes and Apps. While they have the potential to do it, I am not convinced. Their software devision is still too small potatoes in comparison with Apple. Their easiest way in is probably supporting Android Apps directly or virtualised (you can virtualise those very efficiently, especially on Vita's hardware). I strongly doubt that would pose a threat to high-end games on the system, and it could allow them to have at least some of the best of both worlds.

 

[wco81]

Well it's one thing to carry a smart phone into the office. How many people are going to carry a phone and a gaming device into business?

Or even a game-centric phone like the Playstation phone?

 

[Prophecy2k]

Vita will have a good launch but wouldn't be surprised if it saw a fast drop in sales like the 3DS, which went from like 3.6 million in the first quarter of sales to 710k in the second quarter. Nintendo had to back off the 16 million forecast.

You knew even the launch sales didn't meet expectations when there were all kinds of promotions available along with inventory.

I'm sure both 3DS and Vita will reach tens of millions in accumulated sales in several years. But consider that Apple sold 20 million iPhones in the most recent quarter, for a design which is a year old. And then you have tens of millions of other smart phones being sold as well. And soon tens of millions of tablets sold each quarter.

So where does a $250 dedicated gaming device fit in? For people who buy smart phones and tablets every 2 years, that $250 gaming device has to offer something really unique. Games like Uncharted are nice but will it sell systems when you can have a better Uncharted experience on the tens of millions of PS3s already out there?

Good luck carrying your PS3 around with you mate ;-) Along with your big HDTV and portable power generator to power it all.

On a more serious note, i find a major flaw with this logic. You say that the Vita has no market unless it can do something phones can't. You mention the very thing that it can do that phones never will (i.e. big budget portable games that no-one will invest in developing for iPhone or Andriod to sell for $0.99), and then dismiss it because home consoles exist, thus failing to acknowledge the "portable" point of a dedicated "portable console".

PSP sold 70 million. DS sold 146+ million. Yes iphone is big now, and 3DS has been a slow burn, but lets wait and see when Vita is released & 3DS actually has games (and now it's at a reasonable price) before deciding for everyone how many people want or don't want the deeper portable gaming experiences that these consoles are made for.

I find it utterly amazing how many people now-a-days parrot the same line about "i don't play portable games on the go, and so 3DS & Vita are doomed", when they simply fail to see that the rest of the population of the world =/= them.

I have an iPad, i have a PSP. I commute for at least 1.5 hours each day to work. I game on my journey on my PSP. I barely use my iPad for games because there's nothing on the appstore that can hold my interest for more than 2 mins. Vita is a massive upgrade for the PSP and i see it as exactly what i need. Any argument over it's size is moot, when on the same hand you're arguing that the Vita is made redundant by the flaming iPad or any other such hulking big tablet device (I'm yet to see a man fit an iPad in his pocket. That's right... we carry bags). And any argument over console-like games on the go I consider rediculous, because there's lots of potential and demand for these kinds of games, and the hundreds of millions of them sold on PSP and DS only validate that fact.

What i feel many fall to realise is that these deeper games would be economically impossible on iOS without being able to port to other more high margin platforms. If psp and nintendo handhelds dissappeared, then it wouldn't suddenly make iOS and android with their $0.99 appstores any less of an economical risk for pubs and devs. In fact the converse would be true.

I see iOS and android not as direct competition to the 3DS and Vita. I agree that there is some overlap. However i think these platforms are merely seeing success as gaming platforms because they've been effective in capturing a market that previously occupied itself with the crappy mob phone games like "snake" on older phones. i.e. the mainstream consumer who was never in the market for a gaming portable in the first place. Such consumers never owned a DS or PSP, and so aren't at all potential consumers of Sony and Nintendo that have been snatched away. The folks who bought DS' and PSP will still appreciate the kind of gaming experiences that they identify with those platforms, and in that sense iOS and android will never compete. It's like arguing that the Wii was stealing away the Xbx360's consumers... it wasn't... they were a entirely separate market.

 

[Arwin]

Well it's one thing to carry a smart phone into the office. How many people are going to carry a phone and a gaming device into business?

I did for many years. The iPhone only came into my pocket about two years ago. Basically before that, starting from December 17, 2004, I had the PSP with my nearly always concurrently to my BlackBerry/Treo/HTC (in that order). And although the iPhone 3GS I have since then is a great device, I'm already bored with it for gaming (too small screen, too limited controls) and I only ever use it for video for youtube or pictures on hyves, facebook etc. Otherwise my trusty old PSP is still my mobile video player of choice (still filled to the brim also with movies and cartoons for my 3yo son). Also a LOT more durable. The audio jack on my iPhone is already broken (one channel drops intermittently), where my PSP even survived being dropped into water while still being on.

Don't get me wrong, I think my iPhone is pretty awesome. But I will be one of those people that will carry around both, and will very likely be doing so most of the time.

I wonder by the way how the rear-touch would work for shooters, if you can simply tap where you shoot, while using the two analog sticks for movement only. It would still require a fair bit of skill, but it would be an interesting way to decouple the aiming from moving. The angle for your fingers may be such that it isn't too great, but it would be interesting.

 

[wco81]

On a more serious note, i find a major flaw with this logic. You say that the Vita has no market unless it can do something phones can't. You mention the very thing that it can do that phones never will (i.e. big budget portable games that no-one will invest in developing for iPhone or Andriod to sell for $0.99), and then dismiss it because home consoles exist, thus failing to acknowledge the "portable" point of a dedicated "portable console".

The market for big budget games, especially for portable devices, is at best limited to a handful or two big franchises.

Tens of millions are getting conditioned to playing those 99 cent and free games, including many who've probably bought those $40, $50, $60 handheld and console games.

The games companies are hoping that their customers will never be content with those cheap smart phone games, that they'll continue to shell out $40-$60 for games.

But as these customers age and find they have less and less time for gaming, many may find those 99 cent games are "good enough" to fill those limited gaming sessions. Just as many photographers found that the camera on their phones were "good enough" for a lot of snaps, that ubiquity and convenience trumped picture quality and the weight and bulk of dedicated cameras.

I don't doubt that Vita and 3DS could eventually reach 50 million sales and that there will be games for the 3DS which will sell 3, 4 or 5 million units. But will either reach the numbers of the DS? Probably not.

 

[patsu]

Sony: Use Vita as a PS3 controller :
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-02-sony-use-vita-as-a-ps3-controller

You could use PlayStation Vita as a controller for PS3 games, Sony has revealed.

...

"Here's a few boring technical ideas: you could drive a display from a PS3 game, for example.

"PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it. You could use the unique features [of Vita] - gyroscope, touch front and back - as a control device for a PS3 game.

"You can run software on both devices and use the network to sync the game states. And that's pretty good, because you then have the processing power of PS3 doing that work, Vita [doing] fancy graphics - however you want to do it. You're not sacrificing the PS3's CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita."

...

Another thing Vita can do is cross-platform play. This was demonstrated with WipEout 2048 on Vita talking to a bespoke compatible build of WipEout HD on PS3. The two games connected via PSN and, after a lengthy wait for the Vita version to load, worked together seamlessly. The PS3 version had a visibly higher frame-rate and was the better looking of the two games, although the difference at a glance was minimal.

RemotePlay confirmed:

"For launch we'll also have Remote Play, which does look good on Vita - I saw an early version of it running recently."

Remote Play allows the Vita to receive encoded video output in real-time from PS3.

One of the more ambitious and alluring PS Vita capabilities is called Continuation Play. This allows a PS3 game to be played and then taken on the move on PS Vita.

No idea if RemotePlay will work for all titles, probably not.

These are still fragmented developer "projects". Sony, you're still missing an integrated and consistent Playstation user experience between PS3 and Vita.

 

[Gradthrawn]

These are still fragmented developer "projects". Sony, you're still missing an integrated and consistent Playstation user experience between PS3 and Vita.

Will likely have to wait for PS4 and Vita, where both platforms are built with that in mind (or at least have the foundation for that). Remote Play, IMO, in its current implementation isn't that foundation. Just streaming the encoded video output of the PS3 to the mobile device isn't exactly what I'd call fully integrated.

 

[patsu]

May be partial availability. Shuhei mentioned that developers want Vita's "Activity" service to appear on PS3 as well.

 

[dobwal]

Tens of millions are getting conditioned to playing those 99 cent and free games, including many who've probably bought those $40, $50, $60 handheld and console games.

The games companies are hoping that their customers will never be content with those cheap smart phone games, that they'll continue to shell out $40-$60 for games.

I agree.

Furthermore, I think many here don't realize that a 99 cent or free game on IOS or Android is not limited to revenue generated simply through sales. A game like Angry Birds generates a $1 million a month off its free ad supported apps.

I have a game called Hunters on the Ipad. Its relatively simple to play and I am not really in love with it even though I play it a few times a week. Its a merc game thats turn based with rpg features. Its not that engrossing because of its simplistic gameplay mechanics. However, I play to level up my characters (Im still in the midst of maxing out) and because it does something rather unique in regards to content.

It releases 6 new contracts (basically missions on different maps) every 24 hours for only 24 hours. So I never really get tired of being exposed to exact same boring maps over and over again. It is ad supported and promotes clicking through the ads because it rewards you with weapons or armor (sometimes with rare items that can't be acquired normally)everytime you click through. It actually limits the number of click throughs to 3 an hour.

I was more amazed by this structure than the game itself because if you took this setup and melded with a game with high sales and a long life you would have a potential for continual new content generation never seen outside of MMOs but with the caveat that its all free to the consumer.

 

[Prophecy2k]

The market for big budget games, especially for portable devices, is at best limited to a handful or two big franchises.

Tens of millions are getting conditioned to playing those 99 cent and free games, including many who've probably bought those $40, $50, $60 handheld and console games.

The games companies are hoping that their customers will never be content with those cheap smart phone games, that they'll continue to shell out $40-$60 for games.

But as these customers age and find they have less and less time for gaming, many may find those 99 cent games are "good enough" to fill those limited gaming sessions. Just as many photographers found that the camera on their phones were "good enough" for a lot of snaps, that ubiquity and convenience trumped picture quality and the weight and bulk of dedicated cameras.

I don't doubt that Vita and 3DS could eventually reach 50 million sales and that there will be games for the 3DS which will sell 3, 4 or 5 million units. But will either reach the numbers of the DS? Probably not.

Whilst i'm dubious about your first sentence, i can agree with you on the rest. However I don't think that measuring the health or size of the dedicated portable games market by the most successful dedicated portable ever isn't the right way to go. My original post way more of a vent aimed towards those who seem to think that dedicated portable gaming is dead, which i don't believe it is.

If 3DS and Vita both sell 50 million, that's a dedicated portable gaming market of 100 million (ignoring any most likely small ownership overlap) for devs and pubs to sell games (as well as other content) to at much higher margins than iOS & android. Bear in mind also that iOS dev can publish their games on these platforms too for extra revenue generation. That would hardly be a dead market as far as i'm concerned, in fact it could most likely end up being more lucrative in the long run if Sony and Nindendo really push digital distribution on the boxed retail games (which would win more revenue for the pulishers and allow games to sell at lower prices with longer legs). We'll see anyway.

So far i'm more interested to see what Sony does on this front as it seems more to me that they have a better view and strategy for this than i've seen from Nintendo with the 3DS.

 

[Arwin]

Let's not forget though that we're seeing price differentiation on the consoles right now as well. Not all titles sold there are on discs, and those that are download are seeing a lot of price variation. Not to mention that even disc games don't hold their prices forever.

 

[wco81]

Let's not forget though that we're seeing price differentiation on the consoles right now as well. Not all titles sold there are on discs, and those that are download are seeing a lot of price variation. Not to mention that even disc games don't hold their prices forever.

Business model depends on $40-$60 games.

Taht is how they get the licensing fees and how they pay off the retailers from whom they spent years building up shelf space.

Even tho they have some digital distribution, they can't pass the cost savings on because they depend on retail sales/pricing.

Meanwhile, a company like Apple is not only pushing DD from 3rd-parties but also pricing DD version of their software and OS way below the retail SKUs.

More and more, consumers are going to demand lower prices for DD content and demand the same for retail content (or demand that retail content become DD).

 

[Ghostz]

I'm sorry, I've been watching this argument for well over a year now and I simply don't buy it. I have to remind myself these are the same people who think you can make a 20-50 million dollar production "free". It's no wonder our economies are in shambles. That's a slight tangent but formulates the same cognitive dissonance. Yea, short of deficit spending ( if any bank is stupid enough to lend to you ) or getting 80 people to work 4 years 40-60 hours a week for free, there's never going to be "free" console games.

..anyway, until I see someone on a iOS device making Nintendo like quality and craftsmanship experiences on a hand-held there's always going to be a market for it and be a pretty damn big one.

Take this as something simply anecdotal but I know a lot of Indies who view the Vita as a low barrier of entry platform that can possibly bring back late ps1, early ps2 renaissance of development and profitability. Where team sizes were a manageable 20 people, development was 16 months and you can still have great experiences that netted the consumer 20-100 hours of playtime. And of course, if you are going groom that type of experience you are going to need to grow it through retail, not DD.

 

[Rangers]

Vita is pretty powerful, which is the main driver of development costs in general...so if people wanted low cost development they'll be somewhere else. I would say even 3DS, but carts cost might hurt there. But, iPhone, Android, even XBL indie games or XBLA/PSN.

 

[Gitaroo]

or PSN for Vita..... sony already said 1 submission for both PS3 and Vita version of the same game.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Vita is pretty powerful, which is the main driver of development costs in general...so if people wanted low cost development they'll be somewhere else. I would say even 3DS, but carts cost might hurt there. But, iPhone, Android, even XBL indie games or XBLA/PSN.

Vita being powerful does not preclude the existence nor success of lower budget, less graphically intensive games. By reason of it being a portable console, the underlying expectation of the userbase is that they'll be playing games that aren't graphically "state of the art", in that portable will never compete with home consoles and the users know and accept this. You only need to look at some of the most successful games on the PSP and DS to know that graphics don't really matter much for a portable console. And though Vita is a beast hw-wise, and thus can enable higher end games, it certainly will not inhibit the success of lower budget more stylistically pretty games rather than the big production value "console"-like games.

Even Sony isn't making this mistake again like they did with the PSP OG, as you can see they're already pushing less graphically intensive games on Vita (e.g. sound shapes, the new Vanillaware game) along side the graphical juggernaughts like Uncharted.

I think that this premise of "Vita will only sell graphics heavy games and thus dev costs on Vita will be more than anywhere else" is false, and a silly notion that fails to recognise the differences between the home console and portable markets.

The biggest deal with Vita, and it's greatest feature, which Sony themselves seem to be (rightly imho) pushing, is the variety of the system's control inputs over 3DS, DS, PSP, iOS, Android as well as home consoles. I think Sony would be very wise (and i'm sure it's already their intention) to push gameplay innovation amongst the dev community over big fancy graphics with Vita. They've already shown imo that they've learned this from the PSP vs DS situation. Devs don't at all need to break the bank with their dev budgets, as Vita provides them with enough in the way of control variation and system features to be able to develop an innovative and competitive portable game on a medium to low budget. This is an area where i feel even 3DS doesn't do as well, as 3D is by definition a graphical feature which requires a certain level of development cost to take advantage of (i.e. games need to be 3D to take advantage of s3D, in that you can't add depth to a 2D game).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Vita is pretty powerful, which is the main driver of development costs in general...so if people wanted low cost development they'll be somewhere else. I would say even 3DS, but carts cost might hurt there. But, iPhone, Android, even XBL indie games or XBLA/PSN.

As Prophecy2K says, power does not necessitate cost. There is no game on Earth that's cheap to make on Wii that wouldn't be as cheap (if not cheaper given MS's tools) to make on PS360. It's just devs choose to invest more, mostly because others do. But now we have all sorts of tiers and experiences, including programmer-art indie titles, that show assets aren't the be-all-and-end-all, and a smart visual style can be cheap and effective.

Simplest case to make a game look better without being expensive, go with the same art style you would with a Wii game (Mario Galaxies, Wii Sports, Kirbie's String Thing), only smoothen the models with more polys, add a little fancy shading (can be a few standard shaders for different 'materials'), and throw in some pretty lighting engine, and you're done. In HD it could look pretty good without costing the earth.

PSP already has some success here with the likes of Patapon and Locoroco. PixelJunk Shooter would be a good fit for the platform. Something like Professor Layton or Dragon Quest will cost the same as on 3DS as it'll all about variety of assets. i can't see any developer picking one platform over another for cost reasons, save whatever licensing deals are available. The smart money will pick the platform(s) that'll support your game given demographics and buying habits.