Forbes: Portable gaming consoles are dying...

[Rennadrel]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuit...-with-ps-vita/

During its first week on sale in Japan, PS Vita sold 320 K units. The sales period tracked was just two days, so hopeful fans thought that perhaps the first full week would bring good news.

But the second week brought devastation – just 72 K units sold....

Sony will likely be forced to cut the price of the PS Vita from 24’000 yen to well below 20’000 yen very soon. The upcoming US launch could be a true debacle for several reasons. Sony has decided to price Vita at $250, higher than the Amazon Kindle Fire. The hottest games like the latest Uncharted are priced at $50, while many other major titles are $40. The pricing seems delusional in light of the Japanese response to the PS Vita. The older PSP handheld console has been a bigger hit in Japan than it has been in the US market. The tablet and iPhone market penetration rates in America are higher than in Japan – consumers may well be more reluctant to splurge on expensive, proprietary handheld consoles. The launch of the Kindle Fire at $200 has changed the US consumer electronics pricing environment.

I believe Japan could well be the last stronghold of portable game consoles. Even though the 3DS stumbled badly during its early months, Nintendo revived the console with a steep price cut and nearly simultaneous launches of three major franchises near the end of the year. The 3DS should have been a surefire blockbuster in its domestic market – the summer softness in Japan may have been an early warning sign of the coming global portable market malaise. The disastrous second week of the PS Vita is the second sign. Sony clearly had some anxiety about the Vita’s launch – it built it massive early support via an extensive line of launch titles. Despite the fact that Sony’s PSP has been a big hit in Japan, the PS Vita is foundering badly out of the gate – the ancient and heavily discounted PSP outsold the brand new Vita by 40% during the Christmas week. Much is now riding on the Vita debut in the US market in February.

I argued last week that PS Vita could mark the end of the era of portable game consoles. There is no doubt that Nintendo’s 3DS is going to sell at least 20 Million units globally over the next couple of years. But the portable console market may now have entered an age of permanent, slowly accelerating decline.The true test of the industry is the United States, where consumers are embracing games designed for smartphones and tablets. The possible shrinking of the portable game consumer base would hit the runner-up Sony before Nintendo really gets mauled. The rot sets in first at the periphery.

Sony has approached the PS Vita launch in America with arrogance, pricing the console and games high while opting to debut the device during the slow retail month of February. Mobile app sales more than doubled during the Christmas of 2011 – solid triple digit volume growth. In the meanwhile, even in the Japanese heartland of video games, video game software unit sales are set to decline by double digits in 2011.

Mobile games have traditionally been simple and often very childish – yet slowly but surely, deeper and more sophisticated games are arriving, chipping at the depth advantage long held by the games designed for portable consoles. The majority of consumers are not interested in the 30 to 60-hour epics dominating game charts. The fickle casual gamers have started their grand migration from portable consoles to smartphones and tablets. 2012 could well be the first year when we see the shape of this transition. Early warning signs arrived in 2011.

Laughable idiocy at best. Portable gaming consoles aren't dying, the DS was living proof that if anything, they are growing. It's only dying if you are Sony, who can't seem to get things right when it comes to developing a portable. Nintendo started off with a high 3DS price and they realized quickly that the price was too much in today's world wide economy, so they dropped it. Fortunately Nintendo is willing to take less financial gain or even a loss in order to sell their products because they have a long standing history of quality and 3rd party developer support. Sony on the other hand, with stupidly overpriced memory cards which are required to store both PSN games and game saves due to a lack of internal memory (I hear putting in a 1.5GB internal flash memory drive is expensive...hell even Nintendo did that!), is a massive shot in the foot. Proprietary hardware, more expensive games and an expensive launch price will plague PS Vita sales, however Sony is not the indication that portable console gaming is dying, Nintendo is and so far the 3DS adoption rate has been rather steady since the price drop and more quality games due out in the coming months for both the hardcore player as well as casuals alike.

I find it amusing that someone would try to compare smartphone games to the hardcore games of a real portable gaming system. Not only are touch screen games horribly primitive, there are no developers interested in ever making hardcore games for people who are used to paying 99 cents for their games, plus hardware limitations are an issue and constant hardware revisions every year will hurt potential for hardcore game development on devices like the iPad or iPhone and Android OS. Casual gamers exist in many forms, Nintendo has a firm grasp on their own casual market due to the unique non-hardcore types of games they make that have appealed to a different audience. And casual gamers exist for Nintendo as Pokemon fans as being a big one, that will always sell loads of systems and tons of games even if it is a rehashed cash cow.

The PS Vita is more then likely the end of Sony's attempts at portable console gaming, it's initial adoption rates in Japan have been lacklustre due to a considerable number of factors. Sony's time in the portable gaming business might be done, but Nintendo surely holds the reigns tight, seeing as how the DS sold over 150 million units between it's launch and the end of 2011, more in a 7 year time span then the Gameboy did between 1989 and 2000, a span of 11 years, even if the Gameboy Advance was a step back in sales success, it's successor came out only 4 years after it's launch. If the DS is any indication of where portable console gaming stands in light of this "threat" from 99 cent Angry Birds loving casuals, portable consoles will do just fine so long as Nintendo keeps producing systems and creating quality titles with strong 3rd party support, something they had no issues with in 7 years of the DS's domination.

[Caiada]

I do not own a smart phone, nor a tablet. My cellphone might as well be from 2005. I've owned every iteration of Nintendo's portable consoles. I even bought a PSP, even if I don't have it now. I've put more hours into handheld games than I have consoles, but still, I agree with the article.

Now, don't get me wrong, dedicated handheld gaming consoles won't die. It's just going to become a lot more niche. The truth is that soon tablets and smartphones will be able to do everything a 3DS or Vita can and better. All it would honestly take is Nintendo running its next handheld off Android and letting it make calls, and the distinction between the two wouldn't even need to be made anymore. Very few people like carrying around multiple gadgets. Mobile gaming like those casuals you hate so much do is getting a lot more sophisticated. Take a look at Infinity Blade 2. That's just the tip of the iceberg. This huge stigma against 'casuals' and 'how they're not real gaming' is holding back both markets to be honest, and there's absolutely no reason for it when everyone knows the technology behind it is solid enough to make a good game.

[Gratlim]

I would say the price cut of 3ds + the monster hunter factor (defining modern portable market in Japan) played in favor of 3ds as the next episode is on 3ds and not vita. If PSvita came with a MH at launch it would have been a bomb in Japan.

[Chingylol]

Cellphone technology is advancing so fast that it wont even be worth to have a portable gaming system anymore. New Iphones and Galaxy phones can play games that are PS2/near PS2 graphics quality, in 3-4 years they'll be just as good as a current xbox 360's.

The truth is that soon tablets and smartphones will be able to do everything a 3DS or Vita can and better. All it would honestly take is Nintendo running its next handheld off Android and letting it make calls, and the distinction between the two wouldn't even need to be made anymore.

This ^^^

I wouldn't be surprised if Sony and Nintendo are already building/getting the blueprints together for a all-in-one cellphone/gaming handheld that will be efficient.

[Deleted]

And people believe Nintendo is going to go out of business... Sony seems to be quite a bit closer to the edge, didn't they sell the PS3 at loss?

[insmek]

Cellphone technology is advancing so fast that it wont even be worth to have a portable gaming system anymore. New Iphones and Galaxy phones can play games that are PS2/near PS2 graphics quality, in 3-4 years they'll be just as good as a current xbox 360's.

They do sure make pretty pictures, for for some people--many people--touchscreen controls simply aren't enough. They work for certain types of games, but for a whole lot of genres they're wholly inadequate.

Personally, I don't see why people have to choose one or the other. I have a 3DS, an iPod Touch 4G, a Kindle Fire, and an Android smartphone, and I use all of them depending on where I am and what I'm in the mood for. I don't take my 3DS with me every day, but at the same time I never took my DS, my GBA, or my original Game Boy with me everywhere either, and I can't say I know anybody who did. Handheld gaming has always only partially been about being portable. For many people, it's always been more about the types of games that were on the handhelds and how the handheld worked with it--Tetris and Pokemon during the Game Boy years, and a plethora of quality JRPGs during the DS years. I think many other people have looked for the same thing. Whenever news outlets and "analysts" try to talk about handheld market share, it's all about sales, but sales don't tell the whole story. A person can buy a smartphone or a tablet without ever buying a single game for it, but they try to make it seem like every phone or tablet purchase is one more person who isn't going to buy a 3DS or a Vita. It's simply not the case.

There's room for more than one handheld gaming experience in the world. They can coexist peacefully.

[Digglett]

3DS sales for the Holidays suggests other wise.

[Skelington]

Eh, doubtful.
Handheld gaming is only getting better.
And while phonethings are rapidly getting fancier, it will be quite a long time for them to run games even similarly to the same way a DS could, which, by that time, handhelds will be even better. Angry Birds isn't really much of an indicator of a super bright future for phonegames, and nothing revolutionary seems to be at all close to rising.

[Vulryth]

nothing on a touch screen will ever feel as good to me as pressing physical buttons. i like that i actually know i pressed a button instead of hoping some shitty touchscreen registers my finger press.

[prankstar]

i will give you a few reasons why handheld gaming will never die atleast for Nintendo

1 MARIO and its spin offs
2 metroid
3 pokemon
3 zelda
4 super smash bros
5 starfox

thats just a few i know i would miss if nintendo never made another handheld

[-Ethos-]

i will give you a few reasons why handheld gaming will never die atleast for Nintendo

1 MARIO and its spin offs
2 metroid
3 pokemon
3 zelda
4 super smash bros
5 starfox

thats just a few i know i would miss if nintendo never made another handheld

Pretty much this. Nintendo has history, its characters and games have been enjoyed for generations, phones/tablets/etc wont ever be able to boast that kind of power because they'll constantly get replaced by the next iProduct.

[hailey]

Premature to say it's dying. It's being drowned out a bit by the tablet craze but so is everything else in the technology sector. If tablets prove that they are here to stay the next handheld gaming device could very easily be some sort of hybrid tablet/portable

[Caiada]

Pretty much this. Nintendo has history, its characters and games have been enjoyed for generations, phones/tablets/etc wont ever be able to boast that kind of power because they'll constantly get replaced by the next iProduct.

Nintendo stops making traditional portables, makes a tablet/high-powered smart phone/lets the 3DS's succesor make phone calls. Boom, handheld gaming's dead.

I'm not saying it'll happen soon; I'm just saying there's next to no reason for Nintendo not to at this point.

[Digglett]

Nintendo stops making traditional portables, makes a tablet/high-powered smart phone/lets the 3DS's succesor make phone calls. Boom, handheld gaming's dead.

I'm not saying it'll happen soon; I'm just saying there's next to no reason for Nintendo not to at this point.

I don't think Nintendo will, and if they do, it won't be for a loooooong time. I love Nintendo, but they are stuck in their ways, they like to keep things old fashion.

[Caiada]

And that's why it won't happen soon :/ (Like how it took them 2 and a half generations to finally have online play on par with their competitors.)

Only this time they'll be really shooting themselves in the foot if the 3DS's successor isn't as strong as what tablets/smartphones will be like in 5 years, considering Infinity Blade 2 looks comparable to the best-looking 3DS games.

[shinikage]

And people believe Nintendo is going to go out of business... Sony seems to be quite a bit closer to the edge, didn't they sell the PS3 at loss?

bah the was said about the playstation and ps2, if that were true sony would have been out of business before sega

[Rennadrel]

Pretty much this. Nintendo has history, its characters and games have been enjoyed for generations, phones/tablets/etc wont ever be able to boast that kind of power because they'll constantly get replaced by the next iProduct.

I think this is what ultimately will hurt Sony the most, and the PSP suffered tremendously because of it, and that's games. The PS3 is the same way, having the majority of your games being developed by 3rd parties really shows your lack of interest in being a gaming company. Yes, Sony has their own franchises like Uncharted, Resistance, Little Big Planet, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, ModNation Racers, Gran Turismo and Motor Storm, but most of what were their exclusive franchises like the main Final Fantasy games, Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid on the PS1 and PS2, are now being developed for other platforms because there is competition. Microsoft gets by with 3rd party help because that's all they have and as a corporation they can easily afford to buy both exclusivity and multiplatform rights for games as they please. But that only gets you so far anymore, Nintendo can and will continue to sell their games because they are consistently pretty good and they push the envelop with technology as well as game design ideas. When you stay ahead of the curb and have long standing time tested franchises, you can sell your product. What happens when the Wii U comes out? Slated to be on par or slightly more powerful then the PS3 and 360 with unique features unto itself, Nintendo will have their own games to go alongside all the 3rd party support they are going to get from having a powerful somewhat up to date console.

[Northern Goblin]

bah the was said about the playstation and ps2, if that were true sony would have been out of business before sega

The consoles sell at a loss, the games and peripherals make the profit.

On top of that Sony does more than make consoles, their corporate accounts can allow for a buffer.

[Rennadrel]

bah the was said about the playstation and ps2, if that were true sony would have been out of business before sega

With the way Sony is going, and their arrogance in regards to fan loyalty despite the PS1 and PS2 being extremely successful, that was only due to only having one competitor at that time, it's going to be what buries their gaming division eventually. They were so cocky about the PS3 and then when everyone saw the launch prices they crapped their pants and boycotted Sony, many of whom jumped to the 360 due to it's lower price point and already solidified game library at the time. By the time the Xbox came out, the PS2 was already dominating the market and the Gamecube had a stable ground, there wasn't much market to take for Microsoft, whereas Sony took most of it from Nintendo while Sega sat back and shot themselves in the foot for about 10 years before finally calling it quits on consoles. I think it's all a matter of who gets to the punch first and offers the best technology for the price as well as getting developers to work on it.

[Vook]

Cellphone technology is advancing so fast that it wont even be worth to have a portable gaming system anymore. New Iphones and Galaxy phones can play games that are PS2/near PS2 graphics quality, in 3-4 years they'll be just as good as a current xbox 360's.

Except iPhones and other smartphones don't have good controls...I can't play with screen buttons and screen D-pads. Not only is there no tactile response to help with positioning, they take up space on the screen as well.