We’ve been discussing Vita’s delay here at VitaGamr with our previous Talking Points: Why PlayStation Push Vita to 2012? and How Much Will Missing Christmas Hurt Vita? articles, but there's another side of this debate: could there be any benefits to Vita being delayed to 2012? It’s quite obvious that Vita will miss out on sales between those who might be on the fence between purchasing Vita or 3DS this holiday season, but there are a few underlining factors that could possibly make these few months of lost sales a minor setback.

A+ for appeal

Before we look forward to Vita’s launch, we first want to take you back to its predecessor's launch for a moment. The PlayStation Portable (PSP) released in Japan in 2004, in time for the holidays, at a price of ¥19,800 (US$181) and sold nearly 200,000 units on its first day on the market. The PSP wouldn’t reach American shores until March of 2005, but when it did it retailed for the high price of US$249 — more than US$100 higher than the newly released Nintendo DS — it surprisingly didn’t stop the system from going on to sell nearly 500k units in its first two days on the market. The PSP didn’t land on UK shelves until September of that same year, but the increased demand resulted in entire stocks wiped out in a short space of time. The system has since gone on to cement itself in the handheld market, selling 68 million units worldwide, but that’s not to say that it hasn’t been a long, bumpy road to get there.

While the PSP launch numbers were as equally impressive as many of the launch titles, the original PSP-1000 model hit the market with multiple hardware defects; screen blurring and the screen pixels frequently ‘burned out’ from the onset and it wasn’t until 2007 that these issues would be corrected with the launch of the PSP-2000 model. Outside of hardware defects, launch titles like Ridge Racer, Wipeout Pure and Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade showed off the system's power and playability, but in the years that followed the number of subpar titles far outweighed the stellar titles after launch, which slowed the system's growth to a stodgy — if steady — climb. Also, where the PSP was thought to be a PlayStation 2 in a handheld, the lack of a second analogue nub — which itself isn’t a great substitute for a true analogue stick — created constant camera control problems in games and crippled the system from being able to play shooters and 3D games with the precision that console gamers had become accustomed to. Despite all of the PSP’s problems, developers have been able to creatively work around the system's limitations and have built a stable of great titles over the years, and furthermore, paved the road for the upcoming Vita.

Looking forward to Vita’s launch, things are indeed shaping up to be very similar to the PSP’s launch. Vita’s Japanese launch will be making the holiday sales rush, while the American and European markets will miss out until next year. Also, the price difference compared to Nintendo’s recently released 3DS handheld is once again similar, with Nintendo’s recently slashing of the 3DS’s price down from US$249 to US$169; the US$80 difference isn’t too far away from the PSP/DS’s US$100 price difference years ago. While things are looking awfully similar for Vita’s launch, what's actually different about it?

Sony's first handheld, the PSP 1000

Most notable is the fact that Sony is no longer the new kid on the block in the handheld market anymore. Learning from PSP’s previous mistakes, Sony has already fixed the major hardware problem found on the PSP by simply adding an additional analogue stick, and one that feels similar to that of the PS3’s DualShock controller. The addition of the touchscreen on the back of the system is also a key improvement, as it will likely be used as the L2/R2 buttons in many upcoming titles, negating the frustrations of ‘not having enough buttons’, an issue with gaming handhelds since their conception. Furthermore, with online gaming currently taking the world by storm, Vita’s power to play PS3-like games, Party feature and familiar controls could all be key selling points that Nintendo can’t compete with, as the 3DS only features one analogue Circle Pad and is still hampered by Friend Codes too. With titles like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Resistance: Burning Skies and most importantly Call of Duty in development, Vita has some major elements going for it, and ones that are aimed almost entirely at their core gamer audience.

The last Vita feature we want to bring up is likely the most important of them all. Cross-platform play has been confirmed with Wipeout 2048, allowing Vita and PS3 users to compete against each other online. Is it possible that Vita titles like Call of Duty will be ports of the exact same game as their home console brethren? If so, the ability for gamers to be able take to the battlefields in online shooters against their PS3-owning friends could be a massive selling point for those with children; Dad can get his online shooting fix with his buddies, while Junior gets his daily SpongeBob SquarePants intake without Dad tying up the TV, and it doesn’t stop there either: from long journeys to lunch breaks, the 3G model will allow Vita owners to take their online gaming nearly everywhere they go. This brings us to our next key point: demographics.

What exactly are these demographics you ask? Well, demographics are used to determine the statistical characteristics of a population (e.g. age, sex, household income, etc.). There are very different demographics at play here between Vita and 3DS, and it looks as if Sony’s banking on the difference with Vita missing the holiday’s launch window. Sony’s target demographic has always been primarily focused on male gamers in the mid to late 20’s, with a relatively high disposable income, while Nintendo’s target demographic is practically everyone, with cheaper, affordable systems. Sony’s offerings do feature something for everyone, but the majority of its products are aimed at its core fan base, and there is a reason behind this.