PS Vita physical games being discontinued in US and Europe

[Zenpai]

24 minutes ago, yellowwindow7 said:

something is telling me that a Vita successor will be a digital only and a cloud based system.

 

9 minutes ago, DarkSoleride said:

or the PlayStation 5 will be a more advanced hybrid of the N. Switch i can see that being a real possibility with more and more people wanting power but portability would make sense rather than a PS Vita 2. This way they would keep physical games. 

 

Andrew House recently stated that Sony isn't quite ready to pull away from physical games yet. Not everyone has the greatest Internet access and a lot of people (like collectors) still vastly prefer physical copies. They can be quickly bought for cheaper, as long as you just wait a few months, they're not tied to an account, they can be lent or even given to someone else and you can re-sell them later, mitigating the initial buying price. From what I gather, gamers in the Asia region also vastly prefer physical games. There's also people that purchase only second-hand copies, just to get the games for cheaper, but I'm assuming that's not really in Sony's (or any platform holder's, really) best interests

One thing is for certain, if physical disappears, there will be a lot less games sold (I'm going to buy a lot less games, for instance). The world isn't quite ready for a digital-only future yet, so it's only normal that hard copies will still be around for a while.

Regarding the Vita... if Sony's discontinuing physical copies... the least they could do would be to finally lower the price on those crazy expensive memory cards.

 

Regarding a Hybrid PS5... no way it will happen. The technology isn't so advanced right now that a machine as powerful as the PS5's going to fit in the Switch's portable form factor.

[Honor_Hand]

I really doubt Sony is going to with a successor to the Vita. I think they will be focusing more now on their home console and extend their tentacles into mobile gaming. While the PSP was a success that allowed Sony to come out with the Vita, this one didn't have the same amount of success as to grant a successor. That and we have to consider that handheld gaming has been slowly disappearing in favor of mobile games.

 

Something they may try to do is to make the PS5 a Hybrid console like the Switch. Of course, sacrifices would need to be made in terms of raw power, much to the dismay of the graphics crowd but I can see them doing this to compete against Nintendo. I mean, Sony really does have a good history of emulating the same things Nintendo has done in the past. They pick their innovations and try to make them better. That's the way I see them work for the most part.

 

Hopefully, physical games will still be around by then because, as jrdemr said, there are many reasons why some of us prefer the physical route. It is not only some weird collector's fantasy, they really give you more power and more value for your money. Some of us also live in the places with the shittiest connections ever or cannot afford to give money on stuff we don't really own.

[Eyjabria]

I guess they've calculated it's not profitable to keep making physical games when most retailers these days aren't even interested in having them in their selections.

I have a few physical Vita games but to tell the truth, I don't think I'm going to get many more games for Vita unless there's going to be some really interesting exclusives which is rare these days.

[Durandal]

2 minutes ago, Honor_Hand said:

Something they may try to do is to make the PS5 a Hybrid console like the Switch. Of course, sacrifices would need to be made in terms of raw power, much to the dismay of the graphics crowd but I can see them doing this to compete against Nintendo

Or they could program a good app for tablets or mobile devices in general and kind of emulate a Vita. That way they could keep the Vita alive somehow and don't need to make compromises regarding the PS5

[Honor_Hand]

11 minutes ago, Durandal said:

Or they could program a good app for tablets or mobile devices in general and kind of emulate a Vita. That way they could keep the Vita alive somehow and don't need to make compromises regarding the PS5

That's a possibility as well.  But either way, they are not going to announce it as a successor to the Vita. It would be just their move into the mobile market.

 

I remember I was one that said Nintendo would never release any of their games on a Smartphone and that I'd rather be dead first before seeing any of their games being played on a phone. >_> Imagine the travesty I feel when my wife showed me she was playing Fire Emblem Heroes and Super Mario Run on her Xperia phone. I was also guilty of downloading Pokemon Go on my budget phone.

 

Point is, they are going to move into the mobile market completely either way.

[AJ_Radio]

23 minutes ago, Honor_Hand said:

That and we have to consider that handheld gaming has been slowly disappearing in favor of mobile games.

 

Mobile games are for the most part, quantity over quality. 

 

A good number I used to play on my iPhone and iPad are nothing more than cheap cash grabs. 

 

The games themselves are either free to download or you pay a small fee. But that is just to lure people into thinking they’re in for a good gameplay experience when in order to progress through the games, they have to pay money. 

 

It’s exactly like that crap EA pulled with Star Wars Battlefront II. Mobile gaming is full of that shit, and I consider microtransactions on those games to be worse than anything EA/Activision has done. 

 

They’re really no different than your traditional free to play experience.

 

I dont want that crap in my games. But they sell well enough on their own. Kids especially. They love their mobile games, and that’s going to be the focus for the future. They will no longer be playing on their Gameboy Colors or Nintendo DS anymore.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Spaz

[Honor_Hand]

8 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

Mobile games are for the most part, quantity over quality. 

 

A good number I used to play on my iPhone and iPad are nothing more than cheap cash grabs. 

 

The games themselves are either free to download or you pay a small fee. But that is just to lure people into thinking they’re in for a good gameplay experience when in order to progress through the games, they have to pay money. 

 

It’s exactly like that crap EA pulled with Star Wars Battlefront II. Mobile gaming is full of that shit, and I consider microtransactions on those games to be worse than anything EA/Activision has done. 

 

I dont want that crap in my games. But they sell well enough on their own. Kids especially love their mobile games, and that’s going to be the focus for the future. They’re no longer playing on their Gameboy Colors or Nintendo DS anymore.

Agreed. I'm not a mobile gamer myself but my wife does like to play some games on her phone every now and then, especially to unwind a little while working, and finding a good game between the ridiculous amounts of trash on the Google Play Store can be a daunting task.

 

Fortunately enough I'm subscribed to a channel on Youtube that gives recommendations of the best free and paid smartphones games that get released every month. We usually go for the free ones that don't have annoying ads every 5 seconds or force you to purchase immediately in order to make any kind of progress. There are few and far between and most of them don't compare with a proper (already paid for) regular game, but there are some decent experiences out there.

[Sora9427]

13 minutes ago, Spaz said:

Kids especially. They love their mobile games, and that’s going to be the focus for the future. They will no longer be playing on their Gameboy Colors or Nintendo DS anymore.

 

That's so true and sad at the same time....

 

Phones are really ruining modern society... (In every Sense almost) 

[dermarx]

38 minutes ago, Eyjabria said:

I guess they've calculated it's not profitable to keep making physical games when most retailers these days aren't even interested in having them in their selections.

 

^This.

I know many Stores selling PS4-Games like crazy but don't have a single PS3- or PSV-Game at all.

[AJ_Radio]

1 minute ago, Honor_Hand said:

Agreed. I'm not a mobile gamer myself but my wife does like to play some games on her phone every now and then, especially to unwind a little while working, and finding a good game between the ridiculous amounts of trash on the Google Play Store can be a daunting task.

 

Fortunately enough I'm subscribed to a channel on Youtube that gives recommendations of the best free and paid smartphones games that get released every month. We usually go for the free ones that don't have annoying ads every 5 seconds or force you to purchase immediately in order to make any kind of progress. There are few and far between and most of them don't compare with a proper (already paid for) regular game, but there are some decent experiences out there.

 

One of the best mobile games I played was Temple Run. It was very popular on the App Store for a few years. 

 

Even then, while you could make some progress over time, you still had the option to pay for currency so you could gain a lot more than you would playing legit. 

 

I never feel like I’m in control in a mobile game. It’s either a game that heavily relies on touchscreen or has shitty controls I can never get past. A game like Bejeweled works, because it’s a simple, yet difficult to master puzzle game that relies on how quick you can use your fingers. But for many out there, they are better suited to a set of actual controls. Which is what handheld gaming has. 

 

In my opinion people are too lazy to just grab a controller, learn the controls on a handheld or learn how to use a keyboard in playing a game on their PC. 

[DaivRules]

47 minutes ago, Spaz said:

They have made a ridiculous amount of profit these past couple years, not just from PS Plus subscriptions but also for the fact they released the PS4 Pro.

 

Sony's profit margin history (http://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SNE/profit-margin/sony-corp-adr-gross-operating-net-profit-margin-history):

• 2015: range -1.53% to 1.49%
• 2016: range 1.82% to -.45%
• 2017: range .96% to 6.25%
• 2018 current margin 5.68%

Where is this ridiculous amount of profit you keep going on about? That's less than $5 billion in profits for ALL of Sony, and Sony is pretty huge.

[AJ_Radio]

1 minute ago, DaivRules said:

 

Sony's profit margin history (http://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SNE/profit-margin/sony-corp-adr-gross-operating-net-profit-margin-history):

• 2015: range -1.53% to 1.49%
• 2016: range 1.82% to -.45%
• 2017: range .96% to 6.25%
• 2018 current margin 5.68%

Where is this ridiculous amount of profit you keep going on about? That's less than $5 billion in profits for ALL of Sony, and Sony is pretty huge.

 

Sony definitely isn’t short on profits. I don’t know where this source pulled it’s information from. 

 

The Playstation Plus subscriptions alone make up a large portion of Sony’s profits. Everyone is required to pay to play online on the PlayStation 4. A good majority of people who own a PS4 play online.

 

Sony is doing much better when it comes to console sales as opposed to Microsoft’s Xbox One. Microsoft is more than able to hold up on its own with Windows 10. Their console, not so much. 

[DaivRules]

5 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

Sony definitely isn’t short on profits. I don’t know where this source pulled it’s information from. 

 

The Playstation Plus subscriptions alone make up a large portion of Sony’s profits. Everyone is required to pay to play online on the PlayStation 4. A good majority of people who own a PS4 play online.

 

Sony is doing much better when it comes to console sales as opposed to Microsoft’s Xbox One. Microsoft is more than able to hold up on its own with Windows 10. Their console, not so much. 

 

That's the most ignorant post I've seen you ever post. Sony is a public corporation that publicly reports their profits every quarter. That source pulls from their reports.

 

Regardless of your relentless focus on Plus's profit margin, it's requirement to play online, which Sony announced before they even sold a single PS4, and mirrored what their competition did with their consoles, Plus isn't just pure profit. There are absolutely costs involved with Plus that you're completely ignoring intentionally.

 

Also, my point, which you also ignored was that even if Plus contributes significant portions to Sonys profits, Sony shares those profits across it's entire corporation, for all it's product lines and it's really pretty slim compared to their competition that they're "so far in front of", Microsoft, who is currently rocking a 13.72% margin for about $12 billion in profits.

[Beyondthegrave07]

46 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

 

Sony's profit margin history (http://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SNE/profit-margin/sony-corp-adr-gross-operating-net-profit-margin-history):

• 2015: range -1.53% to 1.49%
• 2016: range 1.82% to -.45%
• 2017: range .96% to 6.25%
• 2018 current margin 5.68%

Where is this ridiculous amount of profit you keep going on about? That's less than $5 billion in profits for ALL of Sony, and Sony is pretty huge.

Is there a breakdown by operating segment? I think that's what @Spaz was really referring to (gaming portion of profits). Also, .96 to 6.25% is a huge range. I don't doubt your numbers at all, but going from negative in 2016 to a positive 6.25 in 2017 is quite the jump compared to 2015. Would I call that "massive?" I don't know. I'd have to compare it to Microsoft's and dig deeper into it to determine if these profits are considered large. You can't just base it purely off the number alone.

[DarkSoleride]

2 hours ago, jrdemr said:

 

 

Regarding a Hybrid PS5... no way it will happen. The technology isn't so advanced right now that a machine as powerful as the PS5's going to fit in the Switch's portable form factor.

Hay hay haaaaaaay... one can dream 

[DaivRules]

29 minutes ago, Beyondthegrave07 said:

Is there a breakdown by operating segment? I think that's what @Spaz was really referring to (gaming portion of profits). Also, .96 to 6.25% is a huge range. I don't doubt your numbers at all, but going from negative in 2016 to a positive 6.25 in 2017 is quite the jump compared to 2015. Would I call that "massive?" I don't know. I'd have to compare it to Microsoft's and dig deeper into it to determine if these profits are considered large. You can't just base it purely off the number alone.

 

There is no breakdown by segment since Sony restructured.

 

You're right in that you can't compare it to that number alone, that's what I was pointing out. PROFITS! is the boogeyman that was being pointed to, but it's so much more complex than just pointing to it and saying "That's the problem?!" like was being done.

Edited May 17, 2018 by DaivRules

[Beyondthegrave07]

8 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

 

There is no breakdown by segment since Sony restructured.

 

You're right in that you can't compare it to that number alone, that's what I was pointing out. PROFITS! is the boogeyman that was being pointed to, but it's so much more complex than just pointing to it and saying "That's the problem?!" like was being done.

Yup. Even if Sony's profit margin seemed large for it's gaming component (which we can't see), I'd still look at Microsoft or Nintendo before determining anything.

[DaivRules]

Just now, Beyondthegrave07 said:

Yup. Even if Sony's profit margin seemed large for it's gaming component (which we can't see), I'd still look at Microsoft or Nintendo before determining anything.

 

I posted Microsoft information in the post right before your response:

 

Quote

Also, my point, which you also ignored was that even if Plus contributes significant portions to Sonys profits, Sony shares those profits across it's entire corporation, for all it's product lines and it's really pretty slim compared to their competition that they're "so far in front of", Microsoft, who is currently rocking a 13.72% margin for about $12 billion in profits.

 

[mako-heart]

im so depressed from this

fuck this gay earth

 

[RadiantFlamberge]

I'd rather not have Sony cut the PS5's specs down in any way to make it hybrid portable.

 

One thing they should've done with Vita & PS4 is to add reverse remote play, so the PS4 could be used to play games from a paired Vita system on a HDMI TV with the DS4.  The Vita itself could be used as the controller if needed for touchscreen.

[Myu]

Sooooo, are we supposed to start playing VNs and dungeon crawlers on a big screen? PS3's Hakuoki made my eyes hurt so bad from staring at the screen for hours.

 

I use my Vita way more than any other console and I made a list of all the titles I want to get in physical version. There's more than 30 games on it. And there are still some people who claim that the Vita has no good games.

 

I need to find a good way to import NA games before it's too late.

[AJ_Radio]

1 hour ago, Myu said:

Sooooo, are we supposed to start playing VNs and dungeon crawlers on a big screen? PS3's Hakuoki made my eyes hurt so bad from staring at the screen for hours.

 

Sony is also going to do away with Remote Play. Anything to do with the Vita is being taken off.

 

This pisses me off because I value Nintendo’s handhelds in high regards. Mobile gaming is utter crap compared to what handheld gaming is capable of. Apart from some games I’ve played that had terrible ports, the Vita is quite a good system.

[Zenpai]

3 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

Sony is also going to do away with Remote Play. Anything to do with the Vita is being taken off.

 

Wait, where did they say that?

 

(I mean, not that I use it all that often, but still)

[Mesopithecus]

8 minutes ago, Spaz said:

 

Sony is also going to do away with Remote Play. Anything to do with the Vita is being taken off.

 

 

Source?

 

Or is this purely speculation?

[DaivRules]

3 hours ago, Mesopithecus said:

 

Source?

 

Or is this purely speculation?

 

It’s just the hate speaking.