As many of us who watched the Sony conference may have noticed, the Vita was scarce throughout the presentation. Most gamers were expecting a huge Vita blowout of games and features being announced left and right, but what we were shown were a few games (Assassins Creed and Call of Duty) and the announcement of Playstation Classics. Sure those are great games and the possibility of having a growing library of Playstation games is a great idea, but aside from that there wasn’t much to offer to fans who invested into a system that hasn’t supplied a notable selection of games.
Of course the Vita will always be compared to the 3Ds and rightfully so as they are both next generation handhelds. So why didn’t Sony do what Nintendo did and set aside an entire conference just for the Vita? I think at this point the handhelds are becoming so sophisticated in terms of graphics and possibilities that they deserve their own hour of time to show games that are being released. Nintendo’s showing not only rivaled the WiiU’s showing, it surpassed it and showed off some great first party titles like Paper Mario, Luigi’s Mansion and New Super Mario Bros 2. I was positive there would be debate about which handheld had the best showing at E3, but it wasn’t even close.
So why did Sony decide to focus on things like The Wonder Book rather than the Vita? With sales how they are and no price drop being announced the answer would be to put the system in the spotlight and announce tons of games for the system to make consumers want to buy the system. With the 20 minutes or so used to show the Wonder Book they could have shown off games like Gravity Rush, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, Little Big planet, and Jet Grind Radio. Instead there was a brief showing of a few third party games a quick announcement of PS1 games for the Vita and that was it. During the conference there were times where it felt like the Vita didn’t exist.
As an owner of a Vita I feel like Sony’s efforts at E3 paint a picture of their attitude towards their handheld system. If Sony wants the Vita to compete against the 3DS they need to take the system much more seriously. The Vita has a ton of potential with its console like graphics and tons of features. I only hope that this conference was just a mistake and Sony learns from it.
