Legendary Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto had both criticism and praise to offer Playstation for the Vita portable console. He says the technical specs of the system are very impressive, the selection of games, however, not so much.
Speaking to Edge, the legend says Playstation will need more games for the Vita to be a real success. Right now, he doesn’t see a product worth buying.
“It’s obviously a very hi-spec machine, and you can do lots of things with it, but I don’t really see the combination of software and hardware that really makes a very strong product.”
In Japan, the system saw a decent launch, with 325,000 units sold, but since then it has slumped. It has been out sold by 3DS, Wii, and even older versions of the PSP. That’s right, the Vita is being outsold by it’s own predecessor.
Meanwhile, the 3DS is posting some huge numbers. They have been the best selling hardware every week since they dropped the price to $170 last August.
Although Miyamoto initially had harsh words, he admits the 3DS was in the same boat when it first launched: “When we launched the 3DS hardware we didn’t have Super Mario 3D Land, we didn’t have Mario Kart 7, we didn’t have Kid Icarus: Uprising. We were striving to have all of these ready for the launch, but we weren’t able to deliver them at that time.”
“We were kind of hoping that people would, nevertheless, buy into the product, find 3DS hardware promising, but looking back we have to say we realize the key software was missing when we launched the hardware.”
So basically, Nintendo made the same mistakes, but were able to rebound. Vita has that chance, too, with the upcoming titles Gravity Rush and Sound Shapes. A price drop couldn’t hurt, either. Though Playstation is highly unlikely to match the 3DS’s price point. The PSP Go still retails at $200.