PS4 hype giving Vita a “shot in the arm”
In an interview with GameIndustry.com, Sony’s UK Marketing Director, Fergal Gara, asserted that the impending launch of the PlayStation 4 will rectify the PlayStation Vita’s lackluster sales and performance. Since PS4 titles are required to support remote play for the Vita out of the gate unlike the PS3, there will definitely be an added incentive to owning a Vita.
Gara also shows a hint of regret in the timing of the Vita’s early 2011 launch: “I don’t think it’s unfair to say it came into a very complex marketplace that probably wasn’t fully envisaged at the time development started,” he reflects.
But with the emergence of the PS4, the Vita will have a much more defined role and identity as both a portable system and console companion. Sony would probably agree as much that it did not do a suitable job at introducing the PS Vita to the masses, but it is relieving to hear that it will continue to have prominent role in the PlayStation universe.
With the Wii U’s tablet, Microsoft’s Smartglass and the the PlayStation Vita, it seems that second screen gaming will play a large role in the console gaming’s next generation. But being a game system, unlike the other peripherals, the Vita’s primary function is to play it’s own games. In order to get to the increased sales that it needs, it has to continue to get support from Sony’s best in-house development studios and prove that it can stand its own two feet—without needing the PS4 to hold it up.
Original Gameindustry International Article