Sony Sees Limited Potential for Handheld Gaming

Andrew House, News, Originals, Platforms, PlayStation Vita, PS Vita, PS4, Sony, Sony Interactive Entertainment


President and Global CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Andrew House, has once again restated that Sony and PlayStation’s focus is on high-end console gaming opposed to handheld gaming, according to a new interview with Bloomberg.

The acme of handheld gaming might be beyond us, but that doesn’t take away that alongside Nintendo — who has dominated the space — PlayStation did find some success with handheld gaming via the PlayStation Portable, which notably sold 80 million units in its 10-year lifetime.

However, PSP’s successor, the PlayStation Vita, largely struggled outside of Japan (where it does actually continue to perform quite well). As of the end of 2015, the handheld machine has only sold an estimated 10 million units — a rather measly number by Sony standards.

Sony has also said in the past that outside of a select few Asian markets — where PlayStation US Boss Shawn Layden believes the Vita is still viable — handheld gaming has been replaced with mobile gaming. And as of late, Sony has been increasingly dipping its toes into the latter, and forgetting about the former.

That said, during the aforementioned interview, Bloomberg asks House if Sony has shifted its position on handheld gaming in face of the success of the recent Nintendo Switch, to which the CEO reaffirmed that it hasn’t.

The Nintendo device is a hybrid device and that’s a different approach and strategy,” said House. “We have not seen [handheld gaming outside of Japan] as being a huge market opportunity.”

House continues by stating that Sony’s focus remains on console gaming.

“We remain focused around a highly connected gaming experience and also coupled with having a great range of other entertainment experiences so you can reach multiple people on the big screen in the household,” said House.



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