Ever heard the saying “if you throw enough s**t, some sticks”? It basically means if you manage to get a lie repeated en masse then eventually some people are going to believe it. The practice of ‘professional’ trolling for hits has become a problem, no not just an annoyance anymore, a full blown problem. You see, it’s become in a gaming sites’ best interest to post negative articles for the simple reason that those are the ones that garner the most attention; it’s a sad fact that as a species we’re much more interested when things go wrong, just look at the news. While this is mostly harmless, outside the twisted arguments of fanboys, it's when the proverbial “s**t” sticks that it can have a real world negative effect, especially in the crucial early stages of newly released hardware.
The bad press surrounding the Vita has hit hysteria level now, in fact since IGN managed to get to the front page of N4G, there have been a flurry of wanna-be gun jumpers riding the coat tails of their popular negativity. Actually I don’t think ‘jumping the gun’ is an accurate enough summary of most of these opinions, I’d go with ‘flying over the cannon’. I’m not going to list the many reasons why the sales of PS Vita, in one territory, in one week, did not live up to the expectations of western media; what I do want to know is, WHY? Why does it seem like the media WANTS new hardware (3DS included here) to fail?
As a gamer (and self-professed geek) I’ve never found myself wilfully hoping for the demise of a piece of new tech, ever. It might be just me but I think a dedicated, dual-analog, touchscreen, handheld gaming device capable of near PS3 graphics is a good thing, no? Sure it will have flaws, I’d like to hear about them as much as the positives, but to go to such extremes to incite a flame fuelled hit marathon is nothing short of selling your soul at the expense of the progression of dedicated gaming technology.
On the other hand, I’m well aware that it’s not the gaming medias fault if some people just read a, albeit slightly misleading, title and come to the wrong conclusion. All I ask is that you dial the BS down a couple of notches, surely the few extra hits you might not get are worth losing to keep dedicated gaming handhelds alive?
At Capcom, Hiroyuki Kobayashi helped build franchises like Dino Crisis and Devil May Cry, as well as original games such as P.N.03 and Killer7. Now, more than 25 years after his first credited game (as a programmer on Resident Evil 1), the producer is relishing the challenge of creating an original IP once again.
The spin-off of Legend of Keepers takes a similar concept in a new direction.
Monster taming RPG Monster Crown: Sin Eater will launch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series alongside its previously announced Switch and PC (Steam) versions on April 30, developer Studio Aurum announced. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions are ported by Red Art Studios.
Red Art Games will also release a physical edition of Monster Crown: Sin Eater for PlayStation 5 on July 2 in Europe. It includes a copy of the game and a double-sided poster. Pre-orders are available now via Red Art Games’ official online store.
I think it's not so much about wanting the Vita to fail, it's more about the morbid interest and fetish that society has in watching heroes and giants fall. It was similar to when the Playstation first came out and the N64 arrived on the scene, everyone was willing the previous champion to fall so we could exalt the rise of a new one. Right now, the media are championing smart phones and Apple as their saviour-level tech company, with Sony being the stalwart but out-of-touch and bumbling old giant who's grown too big and needs to be chopped down by the new hero. It will happen with Apple too, eventually, and maybe by then Sony will be going through a media revival and "reclaiming the throne" like we were told Nintendo did.
So it's kind of like a subconscious conspiracy that everyone just plays along with, without ever realising it.
It's all about hits and nothing more. A journalist writes a hate article (usually aimed at Sony), that article gets a crap load of hits, another website sees this and then from there it's a case of 'monkey see, monkey do'. I dont think a lot of these monkeys even care about gaming anymore (they probably didnt in the first place). Like i said though, it's all about the hits.
Apple is why. It also happened to the 3DS, the media is really in love with apple all those years of expert product placement has paid off.
I believe we need to look at the media saying that the 'handheld market is done'. These aren't the general gaming sites, but Technology sites. Sites that review more cellphones and tablets each year than they do anything gaming related.
In the eyes of the general public, handhelds are dead. Why? Because more people own and use phones than they do handheld gaming devices.
Handhelds aren't 'gone' but they are a smaller market than smartphones and tablets overall.
It's that same thing where they lump all app sales in a sales figure to show why handheld gaming devices are gone without realizing that profits for handheld games are still greater and the quality of games are also much higher in general as well as much easier for your typical gamer to play.
These 'Vita won't do well' articles aren't from gamers for gamers.