PlayStation Vita is a “car wreck”, developer claims

Considering the fact that Nintendo had to drop the Nintendo 3DS’ price from $249.99 to $169.99 only a handful of months after launch, one can’t help but wonder how well the PlayStation Vita will fare with its own $249.99 price tag – or, in the case of the 3G model, an even heftier $299.99 price tag.

According to Heavy Iron Studios developers Lyle Hall and Matthew Seymour, it won’t be pretty. In an interview with GI.biz, Hall had this to say about the PlayStation Vita:

“If people aren’t willing to pay $249 for a Nintendo 3DS why would they pay $299 for Vita? People don’t want to carry more than one thing in their pocket, that’s why Android and iPhone have done so well, they are the devices of choice, they offers multiple functions outside of gaming,” Hall said. “People don’t want it. That’s Nintendo huge challenge – how do they add value to that?”

Seymour was also less than optimistic in his assessment of Sony’s next handheld. In fact, he thinks the launch will turn out to be.. well, less than favorable for Sony, to put it less bluntly.

“With all due respects to Sony and Vita, it’s a car wreck. And how about Xperia Play? I’d love to pull up the numbers on that.”

While the two don’t believe the PlayStation Vita will enjoy very much success in the new market landscape dominated by Android and iOS devices, that doesn’t mean they don’t want the handheld to succeed.

“The technology is sweet, I’m a huge fan of mobile technology, but I just don’t know there’s a market out there anymore for the hardware,” Hall said. “I can’t see why you would want to put a device out that only does games. The consumer has spoken. We wanted to see that world exist – more players, more opportunities for us, but at the same time people don’t want that. Unless there’s a super technology paradigm shift it’s not going to shift back.”

Source: GI.biz