Japan PS Vita Sales Fine, But U.S. Launch Should Be Stronger, Sony Says

Vita’s Japan sales since its Dec. 17 launch there were “within the range of expectations,” despite all units that shipped not selling through, Yoshida said. “Over half a million” Vitas have been sold in Japan so far, he said less than two weeks before the Vita’s planned U.S. launch. According to the latest Media Create data, about 552,600 were sold by Feb. 5. (See separate report in this issue.) But the bulk of those were in the first few days of launch, and sales in most weeks have declined ever since. Nintendo’s 3DS has far outsold the Vita since the Sony system’s launch and even Sony’s older PSP has outsold the Vita in most weeks.

But it was “quite understandable” that Vita sales didn’t exceed expectations in Japan, for several reasons, Yoshida said. For one thing, the PSP is “still very, very strong” in Japan and new games for that system are being released “every month” there, he said. The PSP is also “much cheaper” than the Vita, as is the 3DS, which Nintendo released strong titles for in recent months, he said.

"So, we have three very, very viable portable systems in Japan,” Yoshida said. SCE also continues to heavily advertise the PSP on TV at the same time as it runs ads for the Vita in Japan, he said. “So, the transition from PSP to PS Vita will be kind of a slow process” in Japan, he said. While Japan consumers are “aware of PS Vita,” they haven’t “necessarily [had] a chance to see” the system and try it out, he said. The new content and services that Sony will make available for the Vita will enable “more people” to see what features on the device they “care about … down the line,” he said.

Japan and the U.S. are “very different” markets, Yoshida said. Although the launch title lineups for the markets were “very similar,” the initial games tend to be better positioned for success in the U.S. than Japan, he said. At least some of the launch games are more catered to the tastes of U.S. gamers, he said. One clear example is Uncharted: Golden Abyss, which hasn’t been one of the better-performing Vita games in Japan. Uncharted “is a much bigger franchise” in the U.S. and Europe than it is in Japan, Yoshida said. Japan gamers tend to prefer “very stylized, anime-type graphics,” he said.

A strong selling feature of the Vita is its dual analog sticks, Yoshida said. But he said the games that will take the most advantage of the feature tend to be action-adventures and first-person shooters, which are “so popular and important” for the U.S. market. Those genres aren’t quite as popular in Japan, he said. The PSP doesn’t feature dual analog sticks, and that’s a “reason why PSP didn’t get as much popularity here,” in the U.S., because gamers “feel compromised when playing those types of games” on it, he said.

The PSP has been a much stronger seller in Japan than in the U.S., according to Media Create and NPD sales data. The older handheld system “is not as popular here now” in the U.S. as it was a while back, Yoshida said. But Japan consumers “are still buying PSP” in heavy numbers, he said. “There won’t be two messages” in the U.S., one for the PSP and one for the Vita, as there is in Japan, Yoshida said. But he said Sony still plans to support the PSP in the U.S. There will be new releases for it -- just not nearly as many as in Japan, he said.

"We have a pretty good manufacturing” position for the Vita launch in North America and Europe on Feb. 22, “so I hope we have enough units” to meet demand, Yoshida said. Sony hasn’t said how many units it will ship in the markets at launch, and he declined to do so.

SCE backed the Vita’s Japan launch with TV spots that started just ahead of the launch, as well as billboards and a print campaign, and a similar marketing push is planned for the U.S., Yoshida and SCE America spokesman Jason Tidwell said. The Japan TV marketing blitz was done in three phases, starting with a teaser spot, Yoshida said. Specifics on the full U.S. campaign weren’t available, but the Vita is already being featured in a cross-promotion with Taco Bell in which a limited number of free systems are being given away through March 11. “It’s going to be one of the biggest launches in the company’s history,” Tidwell said. As part of another campaign in the U.S., consumers who pre-order a $349.99 Vita bundle will get it Feb. 15. That comes with the higher-priced Wi-Fi and 3G version of the Vita ($299.99 on its own) and extras including a limited edition case, a 4-GB memory card and the game Little Deviants.

While the Vita was designed mainly as a game system, Sony is hoping that consumers will also use it to view movies and TV shows and consume other non-game content. To that end, the same movies and TV shows available at the PlayStation Store to download for the PS3 and PSP will be available for the Vita at launch, Yoshida said. Netflix subscribers will also be able to watch content from that service on the Vita starting at launch in the U.S., Tidwell said. Sony’s online music service will also be available to Vita users. “I see many people in the airport or on the plane” carrying iPads to view movies and TV shows, Yoshida said. “It’s great to watch” that content on iPads, but the device is “bulky,” he said. The Vita “is much smaller and you can put it in your jacket pocket,” he said.

Whether to include autostereoscopic 3D on the Vita, like what is featured on the 3DS, was something that Sony “definitely looked at,” Yoshida said. But it decided against that to focus on providing the best display possible for 2D content, he said. Having an OLED screen in the size that Sony wanted was more important, he said. The Vita features a 5-inch OLED capacitive touch screen with 960 x 544 pixel resolution. The 3DS features two LCD touch screens with weaker resolution than the Vita’s, one that’s 3.53 inches with 800 x 240 pixel resolution and the other 3.02 inches with 320 x 240 pixel resolution. Sony continues to strongly back stereoscopic 3D for the living room. “For the home TV, it’s an immersive experience and 3D is best experienced when you are totally immersed,” Yoshida said. “At this point, portable 3D is a bit transitional, I feel personally, in terms of technology. But it’s great for other systems,” he said.

D.I.C.E. Summit Notebook

"Games are brands, not products,” Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in a Friday keynote. A product is something that one buys, while a brand is something “you buy into,” he said, explaining one of the philosophies he’s had since becoming CEO of the Activision Blizzard division about two years ago. He said he had more in common with the studios and creative people at Activision than with his executive peers, telling the summit that he went to art school, not business school. While it’s unusual for a creative type to become a top executive of a corporation, he said, if creativity is the core of what a company does, maybe creativity should also be at the core of how its decisions are made. Instead, there “seems to be a bias against creative people” in executive positions at many companies, he said. Activision has had success on various fronts while he’s been at the helm of Activision Publishing, including the continued strength of its Call of Duty series, the recent launch of the Call of Duty: Elite online service and promising results with the first game in its Skylanders series that combines gaming with traditional toys, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. The “magic” of the idea for the series was bringing toys “to life,” he said, telling the summit the company knew it had “huge potential” if Activision “got it right.” The game’s release was delayed by about a year to give developer Toys For Bob time to do so, he said. While some gamers had originally rejected the idea of the Elite service, he said Activision was able to win at least some of them over. Hirshberg showed video footage of one critic of the service, who initially called it a “douche move” to make gamers pay for such a service, but later changed his mind, saying the service was worth the price for gamers who planned to buy downloadable content (DLC) because future Call of Duty DLC is included in the price. The new tagline for the service is “It’s NOT a douche move,” Hirshberg said.

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"There are too many platforms” for gaming now, said Tim Sweeney, CEO of Gears of War developer Epic Games. He predicted one or two, maybe even three of them, will be winners, but the others will be losers. He predicted there will be “a lot of consolidation.” Sweeney didn’t predict which platforms will win or lose, saying that will come down to which companies select the right directions and execute successfully. He said it was significant that annual iPad sales have so quickly passed desktop PC sales. “I see a bright future for technology and its implications on games,” he said. It’s hard to predict what form factors will win out among the game platforms, he said, but there are opportunities for the game industry and “our industry’s brightest days are yet to come."

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The big winner at the Interactive Achievement Awards on Thursday night was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim from Bethesda Softworks. It won five awards, including the top prize, Game of the Year. It also won for story, gameplay engineering, direction and best role-playing/massively multiplayer online game. Other big winners included Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and Valve’s Portal 2, each nabbing three IAAs. The Sony game won for animation, art direction and visual engineering, while Valve’s won for original music, character performance and connectivity. Sony’s LittleBigPlanet 2 won for best family game. Fruit Ninja Kinect from developer Halfbrick and publisher Microsoft won for best casual game, while Epic’s Infinity Blade II won for best mobile game. The Sims Social from Electronic Arts won for best social networking game, while its Battlefield 3 won for sound design, its FIFA 12 won for best sports game and its Star Wars: The Old Republic won for best online gameplay. Bastion from publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment won for best downloadable game while its Mortal Kombat won for best fighting game and its Batman: Arkham City won for best adventure game. Activision’s Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure won for innovation in gaming, while its Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 won for best action game. Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport 4 won for best racing game and its Orcs Must Die won for best strategy/simulation game. Nintendo’s 3DS game Super Mario 3D Land won for best handheld game. The awards were again hosted by actor and comedian Jay Mohr. A live webcast of the IAAs was shown online, but no TV airing was planned this time.