That's a slightly loaded title, sorry. But from the perspective of a typical Cro-magnon gamer, the Vita failed to shine in 2013. It had some small victories, sparked by a resurgence in indies, but dragging us down the Vita basically vanished as a target for western third-party developers with no further adventures in the worlds of Assassin's Creed (although that might be down to a delay), Call of Duty or the other big names.
There was no more Need for Speed and FIFA 14 was an even lazier port than before. On the plus side, we got Sony's studios pulling a major effort on Killzone Mercenaries and Tearaway, and enjoyed a whole world of great indies thanks to Shahid and team.
Even better news were
resurgent hardware sales in Japan, with the Vita running a distant second behind the 3DS but setting itself as popular enough for Japanese developers to throw resources at it and not just the usual eroge or visual novel fodder.
So,
2014's release schedule is heavily bent in favour of indies (Tempest 2xK, yum) and some third-party Japanese translations. Plus the inevitable questions of when we get the next instalment of Gravity Rush, plus Freedom Wars and Japan Studios other offerings. There's
also this effort from Sony to bring back older games across the PlayStation family, all of which could bring ripe fruit.
But the big question remains, is Sony selling enough in the west to attract any developers? Based on
their rather nervous percentages, I don't think so, and as much as most hopes seem to rest with Borderlands 2 (a game that just went free for PS+ users on PS3) things are again reliant on Sony pulling out some unannounced blockbusters which I'd imagine it is reticent to invest in, given the poor sales.
Of course, things could change! Sony could announce three million sales over Christmas in the west and a new army of third party titles... I'm waiting! In the mean time, I'll enjoy what I can get on the world's greatest handheld and love every minute of it, see you in 2014 (let us know how you expect the Vita's adventure to continue...).
2013 was better then 2012 but not by alot. Yes we did get Tearaway and Killzone and some memorable indie in between but thats it. As for 2014 i dnt know what games that are coming out beside Boredlands 2 and God of War hd and ffx hd. Hopefully some of those rumor games get announce like imfamous vita or another assassin creed game. If not its goin to be another year of 2d indie titles and badly made ports....
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