14 DAY TRIAL // Fergal Gara, the managing director working at the United Kingdom PlayStation division of Sony, says that the PS Vita handheld can deliver a wide array of experiences to players and should not be looked at as a device that’s no longer relevant.
He is quoted by VG247 as stating that, “I do actually think Vita has various roles it can play. For the core gamer, being able to deliver things like first-person shooter games to a high standard – either by Remote Play or with a game like Killzone: Mercenary – is important and that helps satisfy those kinds of players.”
He adds, “Clearly, now the price point is lower it is open to more players and a younger audience. Games like Tearaway straddle various age groups and appeal to lots of different kinds of people, as does LittleBigPlanet. So the Vita really isn’t just for a certain kind of person.”
The executive believes that the market that the PlayStation Vita launched on was more difficult than the one envisioned by Sony while the device was being created.
Gara says that the new platform needed to perform better than the 3DS from Nintendo, while also convincing gamers that it could offer a deeper gameplay experience than titles that were offered on mobiles and tablets.
Sony was forced to admit that a number of players only want to play quick and simple titles on their way to and from work and that it needed to focus its marketing and its game development strategy on a smaller group that sought more hardware experiences.
During the last few weeks, the PlayStation Vita has performed better than usual on the home Japanese market.
Since the PS4 was launched in North America and in Europe, Sony has focused on the interaction possibilities between the two devices.
A bundle that includes both of them should be out in the first half of 2014.