– There are elements of the Western press who are very enthusiastically pro-Vita. I actually feel like I hear quite a bit of talk about it. The Podcast Beyond (now Kinda Funny) guys have been enthusiastic about it all along, and have even given some of its more Japanesey titles (Danganronpa, Persona 4 Golden, Soul Sacrifice, Freedom Wars, etc.) a fair bit of love. There’s been some “boobie game” jokes along the way about stuff like Monster Monpiece and Senran Kagura (and hey, I think that’s fair game to some degree), but in general, they’ve been pretty enthusiastic and open-minded about it. In general, I feel like the narrative is skewed too much in favour of the Vita being a (Western) indie machine or Remote Play screen, but that’s not entirely unfair when a lot of the big Japanese games hitting it are niche even in Japan.

– The Vita kind of *is* a failure. I doubt Sony’s happy about how it’s performed in any region. It’s not a total flop and it has quite strong (most announced games!) legs in certain niches, but it’s a far cry for the huge early success of the PSP in the West (pre-piracy collapse) and huge Monster Hunter-fuelled success in Japan. Looking at the kinds of games Sony was pushing early on and how it ended up going down, I have to assume it’s seen internally as a huge debacle they can at best mitigate. It only looks kind of okay in Japan because of the fairly alarming drop in console sales across the board. I think there’s far too much talk about the market success of consoles (it’s a factor for long-term viability, but I don’t own Sony stock), but from a business perspective, the Vita (at least as it was originally envisioned) *was* a failure. The way niche titles dominate its release calendar is arguably illustrative of its (broader) market failure. It bums me out because I like it a lot.

To me, the biggest issue with the press’s treatment of the Vita is the way its niche audience has become an easy punchline in certain circles. It’s pretty obvious that the Kollars of the press hold you, I, and others in contempt for enjoying what we enjoy. That’s a shitty attitude and there’s no defending it.