The Trials and Tribulations of PlayStation Vita How can Sony tend to its bruises and make things better for its new handheld?

The PlayStation Vita’s not in great shape. No matter how much anyone at Sony attempts to spin the situation, having only sold somewhere north of two million units since its Japanese launch in December and western launch in February is far from a success. Internal expectations were undoubtedly far higher, and hell, so were mine. I boldly predicted that Vita would do great, and I was wrong.

But Vita hasn’t necessarily been a failure, either. It premiered in the west with the strongest launch library in industry history, and few people who have actually played one will deny the stunning nature of the device. Its OLED screen allows for incredible visuals, its dual analog sticks let gamers play pretty much any game a console can, and its power and online interface make its primary competition look like a bygone relic. The thing is, that bygone relic trounces Vita at retail, and if Sony wants to turn things around, it has to acknowledge why that is and move rapidly to fix the issues.

For starters, Nintendo should never be underestimated. Even during its underwhelming E3 showing of a console bound to be technically lapped several times over by the next generation, you just have to know in the back of your mind that Nintendo knows what it’s doing. That was never clearer than in December of 2011.

It was a stroke of sheer brilliance and crippled Vita from the word "go"...

With PlayStation Vita poised for a big release, Nintendo unleashed the power of its first-party on its own struggling handheld. It overshadowed the likes of Uncharted: Golden Abyss with a new Mario Kart and a new Mario Land released in subsequent months leading up to Vita's launch. Both of those Nintendo games have gone on to sell millions of copies each in Japan alone. The fact that PSP’s old go-to Monster Hunter was seized by Nintendo that summer and released during the holiday season on 3DS simply acted as a pile-on. It was a stroke of sheer brilliance and crippled Vita from the word "go," finally showing consumers why they needed a 3DS at the worst possible time for Sony.

Sony must accept that it’s dealing with a wily competitor that knows the handheld terrain better than any other company and figure out ways around Nintendo‘s inherent advantages. Even with PSP, a wildly successful machine that has sold more units than has Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Nintendo found a way to beat it badly with Nintendo DS. The PSP was more powerful than DS, and the Vita leaves 3DS in the dust. But it doesn’t matter, and Nintendo clearly knows that. Even with a home console audience that will no doubt dwindle during the next generation, Nintendo positively has the handheld market locked-down.

...Nintendo positively has the handheld market locked-down.

Sony’s also making errors with its game releases. That outrageous launch lineup only goes so far, especially when you consider that only a handful of those games -- the likes of Golden Abyss, Super Stardust Delta and a couple of others -- were must-owns. The lull of games at both retail and on PlayStation Network hasn’t given anyone outside of the most ardent PlayStation gamers much of a reason to own a Vita. Recent releases that many assumed would finally change that -- Resistance: Burning Skies and Gravity Rush -- were mediocre and underwhelming, respectively.

The good news is that the big games really are coming. Perception is everything, and even if Japan constitutes a smaller fraction of the gaming space than ever before, Vita must do well there to pick up steam in the west. Persona 4: The Golden could be one such game to help that happen. The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, which just came to Vita stateside, launches in Japan at the end of the month. And even the likes of Ys IV: Mask of the Sun and Phantasy Star Online 2 should help considerably in Sony’s home market.

Of course, what would also help in Japan is for Sony to stop the flood of new PSP games and start focusing its attention exclusively on PlayStation Vita. That’s easier said than done, of course, and Sony’s own Shuhei Yoshida certainly didn’t seem concerned about the perceived conflict between PSP and Vita during a conversation at E3. But during any given week, an analysis of Japanese firm Media Create’s sales charts shows a disturbing and predictable picture, one typically devoid of Vita games and pocked by new PSP games. Many of those titles are playable on Vita via the PSN -- sure -- but why not start getting developers to put some of these experiences exclusively on Vita and give people a reason to actually own one?

...just consider the flood of new games coming to PlayStation Vita both soon and in the distant and not-too-distant future.

In the west, things should prove far easier for Sony because the PSP is all but deceased and a clean slate exists from which Sony can start from. And just consider the flood of new games coming to PlayStation Vita both soon and in the distant and not-too-distant future. We’re talking about Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified, Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, Killzone, LittleBigPlanet PS Vita, Soul Sacrifice, Final Fantasy X HD, BioShock, Dragon’s Crown and more. Away from the retail space, PSN should hopefully be outfitted to take Vita into the stratosphere with an array of games that are, hopefully, more enticing and cheaper than PlayStation Minis.

But Sony should be careful of another pitfall, one that’s been coming to the fore more and more recently. Don’t just release anything on PlayStation Vita, especially if it’s also coming to PlayStation 3. Yes, crossplay is awesome and will be a vital part of Vita’s success in terms of not only how it speaks to PS3, but how it eventually speaks to Sony’s next-generation console. But don’t dilute the power of Vita by porting PlayStation 3 games to it just because you can.

But don’t dilute the power of Vita by porting PlayStation 3 games to it just because you can.

A good example of this is PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. That’s a console game through-and-through and it doesn’t need to be on Vita. The action is too frenetic and the visual scope of any given four player match too large for a five inch screen. But this goes both ways, and it’s far more detrimental to see a game that was once Vita-only, like Sound Shapes, get ported to PlayStation 3. Why would a person buy a Vita for Sound Shapes now if they already own a PS3? It’s counter-productive. So yes, make the PS3 and Vita work together, but don’t overdo it. Cultivate an ecosystem for each product and make them overlap only when it makes sense.

Moving forward, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind as Sony takes its licks and attempts to make the market more receptive to PlayStation Vita are the words of Ubisoft’s Tony Key, when he said that “it’s definitely too early to say that Vita’s not going to be a success.” Like 3DS, perhaps all Vita needs is time. And games. And perhaps, at some point, a price drop.

The fact is, Vita’s an amazing handheld with plenty of potential. Let’s hope that Sony rights its wrongs with it so that more and more people can see just what this little device is capable of.