Isn’t There a Vita?
We know that the Vita isn’t exactly a star here in the western part of the world. Even though it’s a great console in its own right, there just aren’t many offerings on the little device to warrant buying one over a 3DS or even another home console. Still, Sony pledged support for the handheld throughout 2015, so it’s not surprising that fans were expecting a lot more than they got.
As far as the west goes, the Vita is almost a completely dead platform, used primarily for ports and smaller indies. It’s odd for a company to speak so strongly about one of its products only to let it fade deeper into obscurity almost immediately after. They did make a small effort by showing some games during the recent PSX event, but it can be considered too little, too late.
Waiting so long and then barely showing anything at the end of the year can appear as a lack of faith in something they created. That type of pattern doesn’t bode well for future endeavors, so the company just outright admitting that they can’t provide meaningful support would go over better.
Banking a Little Too Hard on Nostalgia
We all love nostalgia trips. Being able to revisit the very games that made us all fall in love with this hobby of ours. It’s become all the rage to release remasters of every single major video game ever since the PS4 and Xbox One released, and it looked like it was starting to die down for a moment. But Sony kicked it back into high gear recently, and they’ve been chugging along with their rose-colored shades for the past few months now.
Now there’s nothing wrong with banking on the tried and true. It helps to fill in the gaps between major releases and gives new players a chance to try something they may have missed out on. But their competition is pushing into newer things, and while the PS4 creators definitely have big games in the pipeline, they need to be careful with their messaging. Push too many old games and the PS4 will soon look like the rerun-box.
A balance will help out quite a bit in this regard. As long as they’re careful going forward, Sony can keep it quite clear that there is a lot more to play than the hits of yesteryear.
VR is Great, But Where Are the Games?
The PSVR is actually a pretty solid device. It’s the most affordable option for those looking to try out this new technology with major games right now. That does mean it’s the weakest of what’s available, but not so weak to the point that it’s not a blast to experience. The only problem is that there’s not much you can do with it right now.
Hardware lives and dies on the software that attracts potential users to it. The PSVR had a strong launch lineup with small but enjoyable games in several different genres. However, it’s been relatively silent since then with only a few small indies trickling in. We did get a few larger games such as Ubisoft’s Eagle Flight and Crytek’s Robinson: The Journey (which was quite nauseating at times), but those weren’t the PSVR sellers that the new platform needs. Sony bet big on this VR headset, but that wouldn’t be the first time they pushed something so hard for it not to pay off as expected. The Vita was also a big deal for the company and we’ve seen where that ended up.
I will give them credit for showing some more love for the still infant console during PSX, but if the company truly wants to see this thing take off, they’re going to need to produce the goods sooner rather than later.
The Pro Dilemma
The PS4 Pro is Sony’s mid-generation console. It’s not a PlayStation 5, but it’s much more powerful than the standard PS4 model and can even support 4K gaming. It was a big deal when announced, and may have been part of the equation that led to PS4 breaking the Xbox One’s streak of leading sales every month, but it hasn’t exactly proved its purpose just yet. There’s a list of games that have taken advantage of the new capabilities with patches here and there, but many of those titles have been out for some time, so unless you want to replay old games, they aren’t doing you any favors.
Then there are the new games that are utilizing the capabilities of the machine, although there has been no uniformity. Right now it’s very much the wild west when it comes to new releases. Developers are free to use all, some, or none of the extra power available, making it a gamble right now. But that’s not the only problem. Some releases, such as the finally available The Last Guardian, perform a bit too much better on the Pro, leaving those with standard consoles with lesser experiences.
It could be just a matter of learning the ropes and finding a balance while developing, but it’s definitely something that the company needs to look into. A new console launch should bring solutions, not more problems, and the lack of consistency between how the console is being used is also of note.
All of the mistakes made this year can definitely be addressed, but Sony needs to get on top of them soon lest they bleed into 2017.
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