On February 22, 2012, Sony released its second portable console in Europe with the PlayStation VITA who was to succeed la PlayStation Portable and its great success (for a first portable console) with over 80.8 million sales. Alas, although the PS VITA was a little revolutionwith its sublime OLED screen, the integration of PSN functionalities, its power, its touch screen and its rear touchpad, without forgetting its two joysticks, and its very affordable price of 249 euros at launch, the console is a failure and will not flow only 16 million copies.
A few days after his official departure from PlayStation, Shuhei Yoshida, the founder of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios (formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment) who most recently served as director of PlayStation’s independent studios, returned to the period and the failure of the PS VITA.
PS VITA and PS4, cohabitation impossible?
It was therefore in the latest Kinda Funny Games podcast that Shuhei Yoshida, the founder of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios who held the role of director of PlayStation’s independent studios, discussed the reasons, according to him, of the failure of PSVITAa few days later his official departure from PlayStation.
According to Yoshida, the main reason why the PS VITA didn’t work was cohabitation with the PS4. At the time, Sony simply didn’t have the means to handle both machines and they had to make a choice: the one from PS4.
-“I think the main reason why VITA was not as successful as expected is that we had to spread all our efforts/resources across two different platforms. And we didn’t have the resources. We therefore favored the PlayStation 4. Dedicated memory cards. This was a mistake — The rear TouchPad was not needed. The OLED screen was nice, but the cost (of producing a unit) was too high — The VITA was originally going to have a video output for consumer release, but they removed it to cut costs ».
Nearly 13 years after its release (in Europe), the PS VITA remains a nugget and a frustration for many players. However, with a fixed starting price at 249 euros (for the WiFi model), or the same price that the launch of la PSP en 2005the console had everything to succeed. At least, everything except the games and PlayStation support. A bit like it is today with the PlayStation VR2.
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