You may have read some news of dwindling Vita sales in Japan, which has been the case since its opening week and a source of worry for Sony gaming supporters. It seems that the pressure is starting to tell on Japanese developers, with reports of trouble ahead for the young handheld.
According to a report from Japan's Nikkei newspaper written by Kiyoshi Shin, the head of Japan's IGDA — International Game Developers Association — an unnamed source said that "major Japanese companies are canceling all projects intended for the Vita and are changing development to the 3DS". It's troubling news for Sony and prospective Vita owners, with the handheld already under pressure to prove that it's worthy of developer's investment.
Not surprisingly, Sony has responded to try and dismiss any panic. Speaking to Gamasutra, Scott Rohde, Sony's senior vice president of Worldwide Studios, rebutted the claims.
I did not see that quote, but you see extremist quotes like that all the time. I mean, obviously, there is no way anyone could stand in front of a camera and say that all developers are changing focus from one platform to another, no matter what it is.
There's always going to be the hot platform of the moment in our industry. There's always going to be reason to talk about a story like that. You can, whatever — rewind two years ago. Every developer you knew was selling — going towards — I was going to say 'selling their soul', it almost came out — to go build games for Zynga and the Facebook platform. And there's another time when you see everyone is going to do smaller iPad games, or iOS games in general. Then it was PS3, it was 360, it's Vita, it's 3ds. It's always, constantly changing. It's not something that concerns me whatsoever.
It may transpire that Vita will enjoy a strong start when it's released worldwide on 22nd February, and it seems too early to talk of developers abandoning the platform. These are worrying signs, though, and Vita has plenty of work to do to ensure developer support in the long term.
[source gamasutra.com]
Comments 4
Give it time to get momentum. These are the same reports about the 3DS last year. We'll have a good competition between the two companies this time next year and the winners will be the gamers!
Hasty generalization considering the thing isn't even out yet around most of the World.
meh. get a 3DS and a Vita for their first party titles. whichever console the 3rd parties choose is then inconsequential.
It'll turn around it's just a matter of when and to what degree. Nintendo was in a position where it could drop the price of 3DS significantly and it paid off, I'm not sure Sony can do the same at this point in time but we'll see what happens. I own a 3DS and plan to buy the Vita and want to see both have great success just like the DS and PSP.
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