So here’s a news story that is making the rounds on the internet today. According to many news sources, Kazuo Hirai, executive deputy president of Sony Corp. and president and chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., stated during a press conference in Tokyo today that the PS Vita will miss the Christmas shopping season and debut instead sometime next year, leaving Japan to get the handheld gaming machine in 2011.
“The PlayStation business is a key pillar,” Hirai said. “The video-game industry is evolving constantly. My expectation is for the PlayStation business to remain at the forefront of this very dynamic industry.”
With the PlayStation Vita recently passing through the FCC for approval and Sony already taking pre-orders for the power handheld, these statements seem a tad odd and contradictory to Sony’s internal movements. If the PS Vita were to miss this Holiday season and instead opt for a Spring release instead where Sony generated more than 40% of its revenue last year, the company would surely miss out on a lot of potential sales from those who would gift the machine during the holiday (which was my avenue of choice for getting one, hint hint family). There is however, another take on this entire situation, outside of the fact that this could all be false and we might still see the PS Vita this year.
Hit the jump for the rest of the story.
The PlayStation 3 launched under similar circumstances; a powerful machine, lots of developer support and some great exclusive games from Sony. The PS Vita is and will be the more powerful handheld ever created with big titles coming to it like Killzone, LittleBigPlanet, Uncharted, and Call of Duty. However, if there is not much support for beyond launch and Sony still needs to iron out the systems online capabilities, something which took the PS3 a good two years to do before it had a comparable online store and experience to its competitors, then a slight delay might be favored for the machine. You only get to launch a console like that once every 5-10 years and so much rides on the initial public reaction and press reviews. The PlayStation 3 continues to be surrounded by accusation of lack of games though it has the highest level of exclusives, all of which have been regarded as some of the best games of this generation (LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid, God of War, Killzone, Resistance, Warhawk, Heavenly Rain, etc.). The console, which also continues to be highly adaptable to the market offering services like Hulu, Netflix, Vudoo and more with Blu-ray and 3D gaming/movie support, is still considered by the general consensus to be lacking when it’s compared to the Xbox 360, which doesn’t have 2/3 of the mentioned features. Again the idea of price is brought up when the Sony launched PS Move for the PS3 for as little as $49 or $99, depending on if you previously owned a PlayStation Eye. Although the handheld motion gaming attachment is now supported on over 50 games which such big titles as Socom 4, Killzone 3, Resistance 3, Heavy Rain, and LittleBigPlanet, Kinect for the Xbox 360, which is priced at $150 and lacks any sort of hardcore gameoutside of dancing games has seen sales above and beyond the Move.
To wrap things up, I would wait until TGS, which takes place in mid September, to hear all of Sony’s plans for the PS Vita. While as a fan of the console (and I had some extensive hands on time with it during E3!), I’d be rather bummed if it were to miss the holiday 2011 shopping season, I’d understand if it needed to happen in order to give Sony and gaming developers a few extra months to further iron out their games and the system as a whole.
[Via Bloomberg]