Yes. Everyone and his brother that calls themselves a game journalist has written something about the lack of support for the Vita, despite the fact that none of them are in a position to know what Sony is doing to support the Vita, and have no useful suggestions for what do instead. It's tired. And it's useless. A waste of everyone's time, including the people writing it.
One year into the life of the Vita, Sony has released 16 first-party native games on the Vita (including several new IPs). Perhaps you would demonstrate your expertise on this topic by telling us which other console manufacturer in the last 20 years published more than 16 games for a new console in the first year? Still thinking? Give up. There aren't any. The fact is that no console ever released in the history of this industry had more games available in its first six months than the Vita did, and Sony was directly responsible for a large percentage of them.
If there aren't enough games for the Vita, that isn't Sony's fault. No console manufacturer ever provided more first party support for their console this soon, and practically every review of the Vita acknowledges that it is the most technically impressive portable console ever. Sony did everything reasonably possible with the hardware, and the first-party games. More are coming later this year. Third-party support has been slow in coming, but that is nothing that a few hundred thousand more Vita sales wouldn't fix. Sony has provided plenty of PSN support, including Playstation Plus with online storage and the Instant Game Collection; both unique among handheld consoles. The Vita is a way better console at this point in its lifetime than the PSP was, and at least as good as the PS3. The PSP had so few good games the first year that PSP owners were actually buying movies on UMD more often then they were buying games on UMD.
About the only thing that Sony hasn't done to move Vitas is to significantly drop the price, and it isn't clear that would help much. Few people are complaining that the Vita is over-priced. The main reason for not buying the Vita is that there aren't enough compelling exclusive games available for it. Cutting the price won't solve that problem, and people won't be that much more likely to spend $180 on a console that they don't think they will use much, than they would be to spend $250 on a console that they don't think that they will use much. Cutting the price of the 3DS made sense, because at the time Nintendo didn't have any games to show that took advantage of the 3DS's power, or played much differently than DS games. Nintendo was concerned that third-parties might abandon the 3DS before such games were released, if sales didn't meet expectations. Sony doesn't have the same problem. Even the early Vita games were clearly in a different class than PSP games, at least in some cases.
Do you have any suggestions for what Sony should do, that don't involve throwing away millions of dollars on something that could easily not make a difference? If so, then let's hear them. A few Sony employees do read these forums. Not every post necessarily, but some of them.
GKP
