So let’s pretend you’re Sony, and you’re sitting on a stack of PS Vitas. At this point, they’re not exactly flying off the shelves, so what can you do? You can always mark them down, yes, but that could cut into the profit margin of a system that’s already razor-thin to begin with, and by doing that you’re not exactly breeding confidence in developers that you’ll even be working on the system for much longer.
So let’s think outside the box, and play to the Vita’s strength: cross compatibility play with the PS3. If you bundle the Vita with PS3’s and really hype up the cross compatibility features between the two you can really making a killing. This solution hasn’t escaped Sony UK’s boss Fergal Gara, as he revealed in an interview that they “have nothing against that whatsoever”, and that “it’s not out of the question that we would do that this Christmas if we wanted to”.
In a world dominated by Nintendo it’s not hard to see why the Vita has struggled so hard as it is. The high price doesn’t help matter, for sure, but in the end I think the problem is in marketing, and if Sony were to start to really sell the Vita’s cross compatibility with the PS3 it could probably move a few more consoles. A bundle would be a good way to solve this problem.