‘Developers Make More Money On PS Vita That iOS & Android’ Shahid Ahmad Says
As if it wasn’t obvious before, but Sony is putting a huge emphasis on indies, by the flurry of games they announced at their Gamescom conference the other day.
In an interview with Polygon, Shahid Ahmad, told us how indies make more money on the Vita than on mobile, and in some cases, iOS and Android put together.
More developers make more money on average on Vita than they do on mobile. When people buy a Vita, they want to purchase games. I tell developers, if you’re trying to build a business, then building your game and bringing it to Vita is a great investment.
If you want to play the lottery, then putting a game on iOS is more like that. You’re scratching that and hoping you get discovered, hoping that a lot of people talk about you. Whereas Vita, every week when there’s content coming out, people buzz about it and it spreads like wildfire, because everyone’s firing that console up every day to look at the content and talk about it.
To back up this claim, creator of Pure Chess and Co-Founder of Ripstone has made it clear that their game has sold more on Vita and PS3. Meanwhile, Mens Room Mayhem “sold more units in it’s first month than on iOS and Android combined.”
Adam Boyes, they guy we saw at E3 announcing games like Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty, Ray’s the Dead, Outlast, and more spoke about the remote play functionality between PS4 and Vita, by saying, “We’ve said internally that it’s going to be the greatest peripheral ever made for a console.”
Back on topic mind you, he told us how well it’s performing:
We’re working to drive as much traffic to the indie store as possible. We’ve seen an impressive improvement on sales and discoverability. Once people discover one game and find out that this is the genre that it’s in, it’s easy for them to discover other similar types of content that they start to fall in love with.
It’s surprising – but not that income is low from mobile platforms, there’s so much content on there that it’s hard to find new games you want to play without searching for them, discoverability is very low. Meanwhile on Playstation for the PS.Blog checkers, there’s announcements on each new game whenever it’s going to be added to the store. Men’s Room Mayhem for example got more than a couple of it’s own full blog posts on their sitting next to PS Store updates and new game announcements – plenty of discoverability there.
Are you surprised Vita nets more money than iOS and Android…. put together?
source: Polygon via playstationlifestyle
>> Are you surprised Vita nets more money than iOS and Android…. put together?
This is a misleading statement! (Was that intentional?) He just said that for some indie devs, Vita is a better opportunity than iOS and Android. iOS and Android put together obviously make thousands of time more money to Apple/Google and to developers in general than the Vita. It’s just that from an individual basis, creators of indie games have a chance to make more on the vita than other platforms
That’s exactly how I read the statement…
“Are you surprised that a game produces more income on Vita than iOS and Android?”
Actually im surprised, ios been out longer then the vita
the games on the vita cost 10 times of the mobile games
BUT, people who own a Vita are Gamers and are ready to pay for 10$ games, unlike the standard iPhone user who just wants minute-games for $0.99…
they are the exact same games
…however marketed to two different sorts of people. Would an average gamer pay $100 for Xenoblade saga? No but there is many who will and that’s how Gamestop decided to make a buck.
Devs selling their games on iOS and Android have to put a lower price tag to stay competitive and hope to make up for it in number of sales. Some do, other probably not so much. That is one of the reasons they decide to bring their games to other platforms as well.
I have all of them… But for some odd reason I like to fiddle with the vita more.. Must be because theres actual buttons rather than touchscreen. But keep in mind there’s sixaxis for droid
My feelings exactly.
Except that it is silly to use a pad for a mobile device. It ruins mobility and poses a question: Why do bother with that instead of a PC?
I do not have a smartphone but if I did that would reflect my line of thinking perfectly. Vita is a game devoted device hence gaming on it is much more enjoyable.
Hahaha
im really surprised and very happy maybe our little handheld has hope yet and o yeah down with apple XP
well, it’s too bad for Vita.. i bought Vita to play Great Games.. not a casual games. also games on Mobile doesnt really as good as the games on a console..
IMO, Best Mobile Games (excluded the ported games like GTA) = Best Console Mini Games
This. all those Indie/mobile games look like Ports from the game/watch era. They were great at the time in fact i owned several. But then i outgrew them. Luckily the games industry grew up with me. until now.
There will be the best of both worlds plus remote play. It’s all good.
Im not surprised due to the limited releases and price mark up. Everyone who has a vita checks every tuesday to see whats new and at most there are 5 original titles undr “whats new”. What is discomforting is to see something like fruit ninja for 7.99… quick 1 week turn around to drop to 4.99, but still not what I expect given the other platforms marketing scheme.
Lol, whats funny is that yesterday I decided to start up the PM Studio and start learning what I can do with it. Now I see this… damn, guess I need to learn c#. On a side note, I actually came on here today to find out, whats going on with wagic? (as far as on the psvita, wanted some code to play with otherwise I will probably make a psp megaman clone)
PSM is already a android based Dev toolkit. I don’t understand why can’t they just use their source code on the PSM. Maybe they are just afraid of the risk of that $100 licensing fee.
The only thing preventing Android and iOS from truly dominating indie game scene us the lack of a controller and missing the standards for building one.
It’s more convenient to always have the game on me since I’m always carrying my phone but the better medium for gaming ( the Vita) would cost much more even when it’s the same game.
I think it’s just a matter of who’s going to grant people their demands first, an easy to carry and a comprehensive controller or cheaper Vita games.
I think the 2 major things holding back android is 1# any one can make games for it its suffering from the same bug as the nes and atari so much *** out there its hard to find the jewels #2 ppl dont wanna pay money for a game thats gonna come and go as much as there phone does. I lost interest in alot of the games I played when I traded in my phone 4 a new one. Plus it sucks when u get into a game like dark crusaders play it hard 4 a year just to find that there moving there server space to the next big game and the last year on that game is out the window lol just my opinion though
Nice to know that Sony see their new handheld,now officially,as an indie handheld and that the Vita will just be a ps4 peripheral.Seriously,if the above statements were made earlier,I would not replace my broken Vita.
I am not against indie games,but with a device like the Vita,I am to expect it will have more solid games (basically it’s the nature of most indies that tick me off,the meaty indies that are close to home console quality are scarce.)
I feel the same way. I enjoy there being plenty of indie title options on my Vita and having the ability to use my Vita in some different ways with my PS3 (and soon PS4), but what I really want for the Vita is the same as what I want for any console I purchase: console exclusives. Some more high-quality, Vita exclusive AAA titles would be wonderful. So far most of the news about the Vita seems to be about indie games that will (or already have) be released on other platforms, as well as ports of games already available.
Honestly, it’s nice for me and others to have these options, but I purchase most indie games for use on my PC, and I’d rather purchase the original version of a game than a port.
As I’ve said,indies are good,if they take advantage of the system (how about some Vita exclusive indies,which FULLY utilise the vita’s power?)
Don’t forget, Littlebigplanet was an indie game too
Did you maybe skipped to read the “meaty” part? :3
Fruit Ninja is an example of a NOT meaty indie.
Devs make more money on the Vita? I immediately guessed why, because all indie games on iOS/Android are much cheaper or even free.
Higher prices and a console with a much smaller library accounts for this; if anything it’s an insult to the Vita as a whole, rather than a compliment for the Vita’s indie game market and reach.
And who the *** is this Shahid Ahmad?
Look him up.