PlayStation Vita turns ten this year. Although the handheld was a commercial failure that ended Sony’s focus on the handheld market, it left behind a great legacy. It was the platform that did more to bring innovative games from small studios to a dedicated gaming device than anything that had gone before. It was, as former PlayStation executive Shahid Ahmad puts it, "a portable Steam machine".
Failure was the catalyst for its biggest innovations. When Sony realized that big publishers and even its own studios had turned their back on Vita - citing disappointing sales - it fell upon Ahmad and fellow team members to find a strategy that would elevate Vita to cult status, and make a mark on the industry forever.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="slug=every-ign-playstation-first-party-exclusive-review&captions=true"]
It's been more than two years since the last Vita was produced, and it's been six years since Sony ceased developing Vita games. But it still has a legion of dedicated fans.
When Sony announced its decision to close down the Vita and PlayStation 3 digital storefronts back in March, the response was immediate and impassioned. Vita fans were especially vocal in their outrage, which makes sense given that developers still make games for the handheld. Players vented their frustration on forums like Reddit and Twitter. IGN's original story on the closure attracted more than a thousand comments. Not bad for a supposedly ‘dead’ platform.
Feeling the pressure, the company reversed its decision, specifically citing the “incredibly passionate” response from players, who continued to express their feelings after the reversal. Generally, PlayStation's tweets garner a few hundred retweets. The re-opening announcement RT-count is more than 25,000. The Vita storefront remains open, and new games are still planned for release.
Industry sources confirmed that the negative fan response took Sony by surprise. It was no easy decision to keep the stores open despite the outcry. The sources estimate that the storefronts probably cost a few hundred thousand dollars a year to run. It's not much money for a huge corporation like Sony - PlayStation turned a $3.1 billion profit in the company's most recent financial year - but it's not nothing.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/24/why-ps3-psp-and-vita-stores-closing-would-be-such-a-big-deal-beyond-episode-693"]
There are also supplementary costs to do with maintaining old retail infrastructure that is not as secure as the newer digital stores. Sony has good reason to be afraid of hacks, and this was a key reason for the original attempt to close the store.
The people still working directly on Vita at Sony always understood that there would be a big backlash, according to sources. Some of those who suspected it might be an issue warned senior management prior to the closure, but were reportedly ignored.
As those who waved away the warnings quickly learned, Vita fandom is still a force to be reckoned with. Partly, this passion is Sony's own doing. Although the Vita was a commercial disappointment for Sony - and the company definitely made a lot of mistakes throughout its lifetime - it remains a beautifully designed machine. A lack of big first party, and triple-A games hampered the Vita, but the company's attempts to bring cool, smaller games to the handheld were nothing short of heroic, and certainly lengthened the life of the Vita.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=As%20those%20who%20waved%20away%20the%20warnings%20quickly%20learned%2C%20Vita%20fandom%20is%20still%20a%20force%20to%20be%20reckoned%20with.%20"]
All of these lessons were watched and learned by Sony's great gaming rival Nintendo, so when that company launched the Nintendo Switch in 2017, it took the Vita team's indie playbook, and created a diverse library of games as a core of the platform. Vita may be Sony's greatest failure in gaming, but it's created an aura and a legacy that's impressive in its own right.
Spooky Squid Games’ developer Miguel Sternberg was critical of Sony's decision to close the store - particularly how the company failed to alert its developers - but now he's happy it's staying open. He's planning to release his arcade game Russian Subway Dogs onto Vita later this year, and he’s doing it primarily for the fans.
"I'm okay with it not necessarily selling a huge amount on the platform. It'll go to the Vita super fans. That community is pretty fantastic and that's important to me, as well as having a version of the game on my Vita that I can play."
These days, super fans like the ones Sternberg mentioned make use of the Twitter hashtag #vitaisland to share news and opinions, in the absence of mainstream coverage. The hashtag's name is a self-deprecating nod to the handheld's separation from the gaming mainstream, and also its enduring importance to community members. The name was popularized by media personality and Kinda Funny co-creator Greg Miller (formerly of IGN), a celebrated Vita fan and advocate. .
He too is relieved that the Vita store is staying open, citing game preservation as an important issue, and argues that it has a great deal of nostalgic relevance.
"I also think there's the argument for keeping the diehard fan base happy," he says. "The Vita diehard fan base is still there, and they are still playing. Sony has changed since Vita launched, they don't have these big personalities up front, who would make us feel like the company isn't some faceless monolith. Vita is this time capsule to an idea of PlayStation that doesn't exist anymore, but people still feel attached to."
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="slug=ps5-things-to-do-first&captions=true"]
That attachment continues to draw developers to the platform. Lillymo Games released retro space shooter Habroxia 2 in February. "We knew we wanted to support the system as long as we were able to. The player base on PS Vita has never been very large, but there is a dedicated group of people who still support the console to this day,” developer Barry Johnson says.
"We have sold thousands of copies of each of our last three games on physical Vita limited releases. Trophy tracking websites tell us that thousands more players have played the games on Vita digitally as well. For a small team like us those thousands of additional sales of each game make a big difference."
Johnson says he's working with Sony with a view to releasing another title for Vita, a non-violent arcade game called Forest Guardian.
To understand why Vita attracted such a die-hard fan base - without AAA support - let's go back and look at the history.
Sony launched the PlayStation Vita in Japan in December 2011, and a debut in the U.S, and Europe a few months later, with launch titles including Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Rayman Origins and ModNation Racers: Road Trip.
Following the moderate success of 2004's handheld PlayStation Portable (PSP), and Nintendo's major success with its Nintendo DS, Sony wanted to make a mark in the handheld space with the most impressively specced machine on the market. Reviews at the time were positive. IGN called it "easily the most versatile handheld available," adding that it was "an amazing piece of hardware with an impressive launch lineup and software that hints toward a bright future."
But reviewer Scott Lowe also warned that the hardware price of $299 for the 3G version ($249 for Wi-Fi-only) was a big problem. Vita buyers also faced the added expense of a proprietary memory card, which cost between $25 for 4GB, and an eye-watering $120 for the more practical 32GB version.
The comments turned out to be prescient. High prices resulted in slow sales. According to Sony's financial reports, Vita sold 1.4 million units in the three-month period ending June 2012. In the corresponding period only a year earlier, the aging - but cheaper - PSP had sold 1.8 million units.
Sony downgraded sales forecasts and turned its attention to the forthcoming PlayStation 4. Media Molecule's highly-regarded Tearaway (2013) was the last original game made specifically for Vita by a Sony-owned studio, although ports of games like MLB 2015 and God of War continued to be released, mainly as downloads-only. By 2015, Sony senior vice president Masayasu Ito was openly directing first-party studios to ditch Vita and focus on PlayStation 4.
Vita still attracted the odd gem, like Tearaway, which made clever use of the machine's back touchpad and touchscreen. Velocity 2X from Futurlab exploited the console's ability to handle fast-paced, busy-screen arcade action. Persona 4 Golden boosted Vita's sales, at least for a short while.
But the decline had set in. Sony targeted sales of 10 million units within the first year of full launch, but analysts estimated its sales were only half that, with subsequent annual sales declining steadily. According to sources, Sony all-but ceased pitching developers and publishers to release new games.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="slug=best-ps4-xbox-one-games-to-play-on-ps5-and-xbox-series-x&captions=true"]
Then Sony employee and Vita enthusiast Shahid Ahmad decided something ought to be done. He had a very specific vision for Vita.
"I wanted to turn it into a portable Steam machine," he says.
At the time of Vita's development and launch, Ahmad was working as a special projects manager for PlayStation, drumming up developer support in India. Although his efforts were successful, he knew he was operating at the margins. "Special projects usually means your next step is going to be out the door, because you're working on a bunch of things that nobody cares about."
He subsequently worked on PlayStation Minis, which were small, downloadable games for PSP, and PlayStation Mobile, an effort to bring "PlayStation-like" games to Android devices. These projects were also on the periphery, but they brought him into close contact with lots of independent developers.
In an attempt to boost developer interest in all PlayStation mobile gaming platforms, which now included Vita, Ahmad visited the Game Developer Conference in 2012. He started hanging out with indie developers, many of whom were enjoying success on Steam.
"I was shocked to find out that there were devs who didn't know what a Vita was," he recalls. He found that developers did not trust console manufacturers, did not want to work inside their closed systems and rigorous procedures. They were thriving on Steam. "They just weren't interested in us, or in anything we were doing."
That sentiment struck Ahmad, but he also saw an opportunity.
"I went back to the office and I was in a big meeting with a lot of execs there. And I said, we are losing the next generation, this machine is going to die. We have to do open heart surgery now."
He showed them a chart listing the games due out for Vita in 2013. There were just 13 games on the list. He pitched them his idea: to invest in indies, and to spend hard cash on persuading them to make games for Vita, or to port their best games.
He told them that stringent approval policies needed to be relaxed. This was bigger than the success or failure of Vita, he argued; their efforts now would affect the future of PlayStation as a whole. "It's not just about [finanical] return, it's also about securing the next generation of developers," he told them.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%26quot%3BIt%26%2339%3Bs%20not%20just%20about%20%5Bfinancial%5D%20return%2C%20it%26%2339%3Bs%20also%20about%20securing%20the%20next%20generation%20of%20developers.%26quot%3B%C2%A0"]
By the time he was done with his first round of pitches to indies, he had signed 55 more games to Vita. It didn't save the handheld from commercial failure - at that point, nothing could - but it gave people a reason to keep playing, and it bound the PlayStation identity closer to indies than ever before.
Ahmad, alongside fellow developer relations executive Adam Boyes, went out on the road, persuading developers to work on Vita games, connecting devs with second-party companies with technical Vita experience, and picking up the tab.
"We worked like crazy,' he says. "By GDC 2013, everyone knew about us. Everyone knew that we were trying to get independent developers on board and that PlayStation is now a much more friendly place for developers. The whole thing just built up an awful lot of steam. If you'll pardon the expression."
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/06/11/ps5-power-insomniac-dev-says-ratchet-is-tip-of-the-iceberg-next-gen-console-watch"]
Despite the fact that it was no longer profitable, the Vita enjoyed a ‘golden age’ of sorts during 2013-2014. In those years, games released on the Vita included The Binding of Isaac, Don't Starve, Guacamelee, Hotline Miami, Fez, Limbo, Luftrausers, OlliOlli, Nidhogg, Rogue Legacy, Spelunky, and The Unfinished Swan. Many of these games were not available on any other mobile platform.
Of course, console manufacturers worked with indies before, such as with Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. But the rapidity and fruitfulness of the Vita effort was unprecedented.
"The terms we offered at the time set the standard that the industry has since followed,” Ahmad said. “They were the most developer-friendly terms anybody had seen. It certainly made it easier for us to get games for PS4 during the launch period. "
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%26quot%3BThe%20terms%20we%20offered%20at%20the%20time%20set%20the%20standard%20that%20the%20industry%20has%20since%20followed...%26quot%3BThey%20were%20the%20most%20developer-friendly%20terms%20anybody%20had%20seen.%26quot%3B"]
Developers I spoke to said they felt, at the time, that they were dealing with something new, and the money Sony was offering - a guaranteed advance on royalties - earned their trust and commitment.
Some give Vita credit for their subsequent success. Mike Bithell recalls the Vita release of Thomas Was Alone (2013) as pivotal in his career. "It legitimized the game," he says. "For me, that was a way into consoles that wasn't available anywhere else. There was an enormous number of indie projects that were getting visibility on Vita, and punching way above our weight in terms of store presence."
Cellar Door Games released Rogue Legacy for Vita in 2013, following an approach from Sony. Designer Teddy Lee recalls that "Sony was awesome to work with," adding "Shahid was super, super cool. And we did pretty well when the game came out, so I ended up making three games for Vita.
"Shahid saw that it was a great handheld, especially for playing pixel games. That should have been Sony's approach from the beginning, instead of trying to get triple-A games. It was such a fun handheld and it's cool that people are still making games and people are buying them."
Drinkbox was also a keen supporter of Vita, releasing Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack at launch. Graham Smith, co-founder and producer, says the team were encouraged to make use of Vita's particular features, including the backpad, tilt, and touchscreen.
"We made the game really feel like it was at home on Vita. It was great to be there at launch. We got a lot of sales, there weren't that many games available. And people really checked us out because of being on Vita,” Smith said.
Guacamelee was released in 2013 and proved to be another success. In fact, DrinkBox says it still received modest royalty checks for its Vita games.
Poppy Works is a development studio that's also published a string of games on Vita, including Factotum 90, Halloween Forevert, and Super Skull Smash GO! 2 Turbo. Company head Wolfgang Wozniak praised Sony’s approach to indies during the handheld’s more prominent years.
"Sony had their asses kicked by Microsoft for digital download stuff in the 360 era. So they were being aggressive with pursuing new development partnerships,” Wozniak said.
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"Things have changed a lot since then, but with Vita they did everything right. Even the dev kit is really great. Before this, dev kits were these huge bulky things and you needed a physics degree to even operate one. The Vita dev kit is fantastic. It's basically a Vita with extra ports.
"So it was cheaper for us to develop on Vita, and Sony hired all these people who were always helpful. These people knew their shit. They knew what was cool and they knew how to work with developers."
While individual developers saw success during the system’s life, there's no doubt that the PlayStation Vita was a failure for Sony. Sony was frightened that the handheld might cannibalize sales of its PS3 and PS4 consoles, and so the machine shipped without an HDMI port, to connect easily with TV sets. The company failed to meaningfully invest in first-party development, leaving their studios with the too-easy option of focusing on console development, at the expense of handheld.
Innovations like cross-play were handled poorly, with mixed messaging and fluffed launches.The 2014 cross-play launch of Rogue Legacy on PlayStation Plus crashed Sony's servers, according to Teddy Lee. In the end, the game's cross-play capabilities were deleted.
But for a few short years, the company created a template for console manufacturers who want to attract indie talent to their platforms. Major beneficiaries of this are Nintendo and Microsoft, both of which have been hugely successful in recent years in attracting indie games to Switch and Xbox.
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Nintendo's recent and specific branding of "Nindies Showcases" shows how much the company now values independent games. Microsoft notably takes great care to showcase independent games on Xbox Game Pass, giving them breathing room - and revenues - alongside more lavish productions from large studios and publishers.
"It's maybe too soon to clearly see Vita's legacy," says Ahmad. "But I think that we learned that openness is better than being closed. That communication is better than silence. That having a more level playing field is good for innovation. That inspiring creativity is good for the advancement of the industry, which is good for the health of gaming.
"I have it on good authority that the other console companies just took our playbook. And my response is, well, that's fantastic. That's all I ever wanted. We were too closed off, and then we opened up and good things started to happen. Clearly, the approach that we took was a net positive for business, because if it wasn't, other corporations wouldn't do similar or exactly the same thing."
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Colin Campbelll has been writing about games for three decades. Check out his daily newsletter How Games Are Changing The World.
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Failure was the catalyst for its biggest innovations. When Sony realized that big publishers and even its own studios had turned their back on Vita - citing disappointing sales - it fell upon Ahmad and fellow team members to find a strategy that would elevate Vita to cult status, and make a mark on the industry forever.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="slug=every-ign-playstation-first-party-exclusive-review&captions=true"]
Vita's Fanbase Is Small But Mighty
It's been more than two years since the last Vita was produced, and it's been six years since Sony ceased developing Vita games. But it still has a legion of dedicated fans.
When Sony announced its decision to close down the Vita and PlayStation 3 digital storefronts back in March, the response was immediate and impassioned. Vita fans were especially vocal in their outrage, which makes sense given that developers still make games for the handheld. Players vented their frustration on forums like Reddit and Twitter. IGN's original story on the closure attracted more than a thousand comments. Not bad for a supposedly ‘dead’ platform.
Feeling the pressure, the company reversed its decision, specifically citing the “incredibly passionate” response from players, who continued to express their feelings after the reversal. Generally, PlayStation's tweets garner a few hundred retweets. The re-opening announcement RT-count is more than 25,000. The Vita storefront remains open, and new games are still planned for release.
Industry sources confirmed that the negative fan response took Sony by surprise. It was no easy decision to keep the stores open despite the outcry. The sources estimate that the storefronts probably cost a few hundred thousand dollars a year to run. It's not much money for a huge corporation like Sony - PlayStation turned a $3.1 billion profit in the company's most recent financial year - but it's not nothing.
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/24/why-ps3-psp-and-vita-stores-closing-would-be-such-a-big-deal-beyond-episode-693"]
There are also supplementary costs to do with maintaining old retail infrastructure that is not as secure as the newer digital stores. Sony has good reason to be afraid of hacks, and this was a key reason for the original attempt to close the store.
The people still working directly on Vita at Sony always understood that there would be a big backlash, according to sources. Some of those who suspected it might be an issue warned senior management prior to the closure, but were reportedly ignored.
As those who waved away the warnings quickly learned, Vita fandom is still a force to be reckoned with. Partly, this passion is Sony's own doing. Although the Vita was a commercial disappointment for Sony - and the company definitely made a lot of mistakes throughout its lifetime - it remains a beautifully designed machine. A lack of big first party, and triple-A games hampered the Vita, but the company's attempts to bring cool, smaller games to the handheld were nothing short of heroic, and certainly lengthened the life of the Vita.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=As%20those%20who%20waved%20away%20the%20warnings%20quickly%20learned%2C%20Vita%20fandom%20is%20still%20a%20force%20to%20be%20reckoned%20with.%20"]
All of these lessons were watched and learned by Sony's great gaming rival Nintendo, so when that company launched the Nintendo Switch in 2017, it took the Vita team's indie playbook, and created a diverse library of games as a core of the platform. Vita may be Sony's greatest failure in gaming, but it's created an aura and a legacy that's impressive in its own right.
A Visit to Vita Island
Spooky Squid Games’ developer Miguel Sternberg was critical of Sony's decision to close the store - particularly how the company failed to alert its developers - but now he's happy it's staying open. He's planning to release his arcade game Russian Subway Dogs onto Vita later this year, and he’s doing it primarily for the fans.
"I'm okay with it not necessarily selling a huge amount on the platform. It'll go to the Vita super fans. That community is pretty fantastic and that's important to me, as well as having a version of the game on my Vita that I can play."
These days, super fans like the ones Sternberg mentioned make use of the Twitter hashtag #vitaisland to share news and opinions, in the absence of mainstream coverage. The hashtag's name is a self-deprecating nod to the handheld's separation from the gaming mainstream, and also its enduring importance to community members. The name was popularized by media personality and Kinda Funny co-creator Greg Miller (formerly of IGN), a celebrated Vita fan and advocate. .
He too is relieved that the Vita store is staying open, citing game preservation as an important issue, and argues that it has a great deal of nostalgic relevance.
"I also think there's the argument for keeping the diehard fan base happy," he says. "The Vita diehard fan base is still there, and they are still playing. Sony has changed since Vita launched, they don't have these big personalities up front, who would make us feel like the company isn't some faceless monolith. Vita is this time capsule to an idea of PlayStation that doesn't exist anymore, but people still feel attached to."
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="slug=ps5-things-to-do-first&captions=true"]
That attachment continues to draw developers to the platform. Lillymo Games released retro space shooter Habroxia 2 in February. "We knew we wanted to support the system as long as we were able to. The player base on PS Vita has never been very large, but there is a dedicated group of people who still support the console to this day,” developer Barry Johnson says.
"We have sold thousands of copies of each of our last three games on physical Vita limited releases. Trophy tracking websites tell us that thousands more players have played the games on Vita digitally as well. For a small team like us those thousands of additional sales of each game make a big difference."
Johnson says he's working with Sony with a view to releasing another title for Vita, a non-violent arcade game called Forest Guardian.
The Life of the Vita
To understand why Vita attracted such a die-hard fan base - without AAA support - let's go back and look at the history.
Sony launched the PlayStation Vita in Japan in December 2011, and a debut in the U.S, and Europe a few months later, with launch titles including Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Rayman Origins and ModNation Racers: Road Trip.
Following the moderate success of 2004's handheld PlayStation Portable (PSP), and Nintendo's major success with its Nintendo DS, Sony wanted to make a mark in the handheld space with the most impressively specced machine on the market. Reviews at the time were positive. IGN called it "easily the most versatile handheld available," adding that it was "an amazing piece of hardware with an impressive launch lineup and software that hints toward a bright future."
But reviewer Scott Lowe also warned that the hardware price of $299 for the 3G version ($249 for Wi-Fi-only) was a big problem. Vita buyers also faced the added expense of a proprietary memory card, which cost between $25 for 4GB, and an eye-watering $120 for the more practical 32GB version.
The comments turned out to be prescient. High prices resulted in slow sales. According to Sony's financial reports, Vita sold 1.4 million units in the three-month period ending June 2012. In the corresponding period only a year earlier, the aging - but cheaper - PSP had sold 1.8 million units.
Sony downgraded sales forecasts and turned its attention to the forthcoming PlayStation 4. Media Molecule's highly-regarded Tearaway (2013) was the last original game made specifically for Vita by a Sony-owned studio, although ports of games like MLB 2015 and God of War continued to be released, mainly as downloads-only. By 2015, Sony senior vice president Masayasu Ito was openly directing first-party studios to ditch Vita and focus on PlayStation 4.
Vita still attracted the odd gem, like Tearaway, which made clever use of the machine's back touchpad and touchscreen. Velocity 2X from Futurlab exploited the console's ability to handle fast-paced, busy-screen arcade action. Persona 4 Golden boosted Vita's sales, at least for a short while.
But the decline had set in. Sony targeted sales of 10 million units within the first year of full launch, but analysts estimated its sales were only half that, with subsequent annual sales declining steadily. According to sources, Sony all-but ceased pitching developers and publishers to release new games.
[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="slug=best-ps4-xbox-one-games-to-play-on-ps5-and-xbox-series-x&captions=true"]
The Big Push
Then Sony employee and Vita enthusiast Shahid Ahmad decided something ought to be done. He had a very specific vision for Vita.
"I wanted to turn it into a portable Steam machine," he says.
At the time of Vita's development and launch, Ahmad was working as a special projects manager for PlayStation, drumming up developer support in India. Although his efforts were successful, he knew he was operating at the margins. "Special projects usually means your next step is going to be out the door, because you're working on a bunch of things that nobody cares about."
He subsequently worked on PlayStation Minis, which were small, downloadable games for PSP, and PlayStation Mobile, an effort to bring "PlayStation-like" games to Android devices. These projects were also on the periphery, but they brought him into close contact with lots of independent developers.
In an attempt to boost developer interest in all PlayStation mobile gaming platforms, which now included Vita, Ahmad visited the Game Developer Conference in 2012. He started hanging out with indie developers, many of whom were enjoying success on Steam.
"I was shocked to find out that there were devs who didn't know what a Vita was," he recalls. He found that developers did not trust console manufacturers, did not want to work inside their closed systems and rigorous procedures. They were thriving on Steam. "They just weren't interested in us, or in anything we were doing."
That sentiment struck Ahmad, but he also saw an opportunity.
"I went back to the office and I was in a big meeting with a lot of execs there. And I said, we are losing the next generation, this machine is going to die. We have to do open heart surgery now."
He showed them a chart listing the games due out for Vita in 2013. There were just 13 games on the list. He pitched them his idea: to invest in indies, and to spend hard cash on persuading them to make games for Vita, or to port their best games.
He told them that stringent approval policies needed to be relaxed. This was bigger than the success or failure of Vita, he argued; their efforts now would affect the future of PlayStation as a whole. "It's not just about [finanical] return, it's also about securing the next generation of developers," he told them.
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%26quot%3BIt%26%2339%3Bs%20not%20just%20about%20%5Bfinancial%5D%20return%2C%20it%26%2339%3Bs%20also%20about%20securing%20the%20next%20generation%20of%20developers.%26quot%3B%C2%A0"]
By the time he was done with his first round of pitches to indies, he had signed 55 more games to Vita. It didn't save the handheld from commercial failure - at that point, nothing could - but it gave people a reason to keep playing, and it bound the PlayStation identity closer to indies than ever before.
Ahmad, alongside fellow developer relations executive Adam Boyes, went out on the road, persuading developers to work on Vita games, connecting devs with second-party companies with technical Vita experience, and picking up the tab.
"We worked like crazy,' he says. "By GDC 2013, everyone knew about us. Everyone knew that we were trying to get independent developers on board and that PlayStation is now a much more friendly place for developers. The whole thing just built up an awful lot of steam. If you'll pardon the expression."
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/06/11/ps5-power-insomniac-dev-says-ratchet-is-tip-of-the-iceberg-next-gen-console-watch"]
The Golden Age
Despite the fact that it was no longer profitable, the Vita enjoyed a ‘golden age’ of sorts during 2013-2014. In those years, games released on the Vita included The Binding of Isaac, Don't Starve, Guacamelee, Hotline Miami, Fez, Limbo, Luftrausers, OlliOlli, Nidhogg, Rogue Legacy, Spelunky, and The Unfinished Swan. Many of these games were not available on any other mobile platform.
Of course, console manufacturers worked with indies before, such as with Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. But the rapidity and fruitfulness of the Vita effort was unprecedented.
"The terms we offered at the time set the standard that the industry has since followed,” Ahmad said. “They were the most developer-friendly terms anybody had seen. It certainly made it easier for us to get games for PS4 during the launch period. "
[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=%26quot%3BThe%20terms%20we%20offered%20at%20the%20time%20set%20the%20standard%20that%20the%20industry%20has%20since%20followed...%26quot%3BThey%20were%20the%20most%20developer-friendly%20terms%20anybody%20had%20seen.%26quot%3B"]
Developers I spoke to said they felt, at the time, that they were dealing with something new, and the money Sony was offering - a guaranteed advance on royalties - earned their trust and commitment.
Some give Vita credit for their subsequent success. Mike Bithell recalls the Vita release of Thomas Was Alone (2013) as pivotal in his career. "It legitimized the game," he says. "For me, that was a way into consoles that wasn't available anywhere else. There was an enormous number of indie projects that were getting visibility on Vita, and punching way above our weight in terms of store presence."
Cellar Door Games released Rogue Legacy for Vita in 2013, following an approach from Sony. Designer Teddy Lee recalls that "Sony was awesome to work with," adding "Shahid was super, super cool. And we did pretty well when the game came out, so I ended up making three games for Vita.
"Shahid saw that it was a great handheld, especially for playing pixel games. That should have been Sony's approach from the beginning, instead of trying to get triple-A games. It was such a fun handheld and it's cool that people are still making games and people are buying them."
Drinkbox was also a keen supporter of Vita, releasing Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack at launch. Graham Smith, co-founder and producer, says the team were encouraged to make use of Vita's particular features, including the backpad, tilt, and touchscreen.
"We made the game really feel like it was at home on Vita. It was great to be there at launch. We got a lot of sales, there weren't that many games available. And people really checked us out because of being on Vita,” Smith said.
Guacamelee was released in 2013 and proved to be another success. In fact, DrinkBox says it still received modest royalty checks for its Vita games.
Poppy Works is a development studio that's also published a string of games on Vita, including Factotum 90, Halloween Forevert, and Super Skull Smash GO! 2 Turbo. Company head Wolfgang Wozniak praised Sony’s approach to indies during the handheld’s more prominent years.
"Sony had their asses kicked by Microsoft for digital download stuff in the 360 era. So they were being aggressive with pursuing new development partnerships,” Wozniak said.
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"Things have changed a lot since then, but with Vita they did everything right. Even the dev kit is really great. Before this, dev kits were these huge bulky things and you needed a physics degree to even operate one. The Vita dev kit is fantastic. It's basically a Vita with extra ports.
"So it was cheaper for us to develop on Vita, and Sony hired all these people who were always helpful. These people knew their shit. They knew what was cool and they knew how to work with developers."
Vita's Legacy
While individual developers saw success during the system’s life, there's no doubt that the PlayStation Vita was a failure for Sony. Sony was frightened that the handheld might cannibalize sales of its PS3 and PS4 consoles, and so the machine shipped without an HDMI port, to connect easily with TV sets. The company failed to meaningfully invest in first-party development, leaving their studios with the too-easy option of focusing on console development, at the expense of handheld.
Innovations like cross-play were handled poorly, with mixed messaging and fluffed launches.The 2014 cross-play launch of Rogue Legacy on PlayStation Plus crashed Sony's servers, according to Teddy Lee. In the end, the game's cross-play capabilities were deleted.
But for a few short years, the company created a template for console manufacturers who want to attract indie talent to their platforms. Major beneficiaries of this are Nintendo and Microsoft, both of which have been hugely successful in recent years in attracting indie games to Switch and Xbox.
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Nintendo's recent and specific branding of "Nindies Showcases" shows how much the company now values independent games. Microsoft notably takes great care to showcase independent games on Xbox Game Pass, giving them breathing room - and revenues - alongside more lavish productions from large studios and publishers.
"It's maybe too soon to clearly see Vita's legacy," says Ahmad. "But I think that we learned that openness is better than being closed. That communication is better than silence. That having a more level playing field is good for innovation. That inspiring creativity is good for the advancement of the industry, which is good for the health of gaming.
"I have it on good authority that the other console companies just took our playbook. And my response is, well, that's fantastic. That's all I ever wanted. We were too closed off, and then we opened up and good things started to happen. Clearly, the approach that we took was a net positive for business, because if it wasn't, other corporations wouldn't do similar or exactly the same thing."
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Colin Campbelll has been writing about games for three decades. Check out his daily newsletter How Games Are Changing The World.
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