Monday May 28, 2012

JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

PlayStation Vita game gadgets debut outside Asia

Technology Feb. 23, 2012 - 06:23AM JST ( 7 )

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7 Comments

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cactusJackFeb. 23, 2012 - 10:00AM JST

"Vita" would be a great name for a vegetable slicer. Just sayin'.
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m5c32Feb. 23, 2012 - 02:06PM JST

Five years too late, Sony. The world has passed you by.

Comparable price to that of a full fledged gaming console? Proprietary cartridges? Expensive memory expansion? Are Sony still high on their Walkman and Trinitron success? Newsflash, Samsung ate your TV lunch and Apple ate your Music player and Phone lunch and dinner.

Go make some movies or something.

Ciao.
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WeaselFeb. 23, 2012 - 02:50PM JST

Smartphones and iPods changed the mobile gaming paradigm years ago with offering games for only 99 cents each. I don't see either Sony or Nintendo (more so with Sony) being too successful in this current market trend. You don't always want or need a Ferrari just to go buy some groceries.
-1

Motaz AbumathkourFeb. 23, 2012 - 04:33PM JST

You don't always want or need a Ferrari just to go buy some groceries.

But you would favor having one , wouldn't you?? That's why those Galaxy S2's sell , even though the dual-cores still don't work on it
2

wipeoutFeb. 23, 2012 - 08:46PM JST

"Five years too late, Sony. The world has passed you by.

Comparable price to that of a full fledged gaming console? Proprietary cartridges? Expensive memory expansion? Are Sony still high on their Walkman and Trinitron success? Newsflash, Samsung ate your TV lunch and Apple ate your Music player and Phone lunch and dinner.

Go make some movies or something."

Any new gaming system or piece of equipment is a a gamble, whether it's the Walkman, the Gameboy, the iPhone, the iPod, or the Vita. Sony probably knows that only too well, coming out on the wrong side of Betamax, getting almost nowhere with SACD, etc. But when it pays off, it pays off well. They've had a few successes too, like PS2, Bluray, and PS3...where has Samsung been during all that? Not inventing new shit, that's for sure. They make Bluray players - hardware for a format developed by Sony, and which Sony took a risk on, going up against HD-DVD. You could buy a Samsung player, but you could just as easily buy a Sony, a Pioneer or a Yamaha or a player from a dozen other companies.

I've got plenty of criticisms of Sony - in fact I barely know where to start - but the idea that Samsung is taking over the world, or even Sony's world, is an exaggeration. Bluray is now the format of choice for anyone serious about films - Samsung has nothing to do with that - and Sony's had a hand in developing the most important disc formats of the last couple of decades from CD to MD to DVD and now Bluray. Sony claims to have sold over 52 million PS3s worldwide, and 72 million PSPs - so it's not that surprising they still want to be in the console and handheld market, and release new models. Where are the Korean companies? What is the Korean gaming platform? Or even game? You've got Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, Sony, those four have effectively been carving up the entire console hardware market between them for the last 15 years. Before that, it was really just Nintendo and Sega. Whose lunch has Samsung been eating there?

Samsung makes some fine products, and I even own some, but their contribution to advancing new technology is negligible. Game changers? They are neither an Apple nor a Sony - you won't see the equivalent of a Walkman or a Playstation or an iPod from Samsung for years yet.
1

m5c32Feb. 24, 2012 - 01:09PM JST

Sony's had a hand in developing the most important disc formats of the last couple of decades from CD to MD to DVD and now Bluray

They did have a hand in the yellow, red, orange books, etc. The bad news is that physical media is out. One of these days Apple will stop selling their systems with optical media throughout their whole line--not just the macbook airs.

The days of optical being a diffused technology are numbered. With the advent of 100Mbps to the home, there is little need for this kind of medium. Streaming is where it's at.

Anyhow, main point was Vita is close to dead on arrival -a few fanatics is about it. I don't see it becoming the tour de force that Sony hope for.
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wipeoutFeb. 24, 2012 - 08:22PM JST

They did have a hand in the yellow, red, orange books, etc. The bad news is that physical media is out. One of these days Apple will stop selling their systems with optical media throughout their whole line--not just the macbook airs.

The days of optical being a diffused technology are numbered. With the advent of 100Mbps to the home, there is little need for this kind of medium. Streaming is where it's at.

Apple may do as they like. They have decided already to completely ignore the existence of Bluray in their hardware configurations and OS, and they may have perfectly valid reasons for that. But in the rest of the world, there is a multibillion dollar market for physical media - your CDs, DVDs and Blurays. Bluray is still a rapidly growing format, and for the home consumer, it is unquestionably the reference format for film or high quality video. It is wishful thinking to say optical discs are out when this is the main market for video. Streaming might take over from that in the near future, but while there's money to be made, the content providers and hardware manufacturers are going to carry on catering to a market that already exists, and in fact, that continues to grow.

http://www.splatf.com/2011/10/dvd-bluray-3q11/

And streaming has a problem: the slow connection speed in some countries, including the US and Britain, which are notorious for slow uptake of fibre optic or equivalents. With 100 Mbps years away for most people in those countries, there's not yet a sufficient base to build that super-efficient streaming service that would be needed to wipe out primitive DVDs and Blurays. Maybe in 10 years?