"PS Vita in the hot seat after deep 3DS price cuts" - says analysts

Ricardo Trejo Aug 9, 2011 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Gadgets, Gaming, Geek Culture, Handhelds, News, Sony

During Sony’s E3 press conference when Kaz threw out the magic number of $249.99 for the Wi-Fi model of their upcoming PSP successor, it felt like the deal of the century — especially since the 3DS at the time was marked at the same value. The question now is will Sony be changing any of their plans now that Nintendo has sliced off $70 off their handheld’s price tag? Analysts believe so. — More after the break!

Ace Securities analyst Hideki Yasud, had this to say on the subject:

“Gamers are increasingly anticipating Sony to lower prices, especially after the 3DS cut. Sony is under major pressure to cut the price of the Vita or risk a major failure.”

In early response to Nintendo’s move, Sony’s own Kaz felt a price cut would be premature:

“We have a very good product at a very affordable price. There’s no need to lower the price just because somebody else that happens to be in the video game industry decided they were going to.”

The argument I find the most convincing against the PS Vita is the fact that the system itself is very powerful, almost too powerful to be in your pants pocket. That can sound ironic seeing as you’re gonna want a strong machine, but when it comes to having the same type of games seen on home console in the palm of your hand why wouldn’t you just play them on the PS3? 

Nintendo’s 3DS price cut will bring a lot more people to be introduced into this new handheld generation, but the PS Vita looks like it might be a breeding ground for the exact same kind that gravitated to the original PSP.