Sony marketing fail No. 1734

Holy cow, Sony is trying to market the Vita, but only to existing owners. This email just arrived in my inbox, promoting the delights of Severed, Axiom Verge, Foul Play and Rocketbirds 2.

However, telling me - a Vita owner - about their existence is beyond useless. What Sony actually needs to be sending out to the world are YouTube sizzle reels showing off these games in action on the handheld.

Then, it needs to get the remaining major third parties together and put on some, any, kind of showing at E3 highlighting the successes of the year and the big games to come. Not every gamer needs to be shovel fed the next CoD, Battlefield and whatever other high-poly cannon fodder there is. Breaking this grim cycle of shows fixated on pointless revisions is not helping the industry.

Finally, it needs to stop show some balls and make an effort to halt this whole "Vita is dead" misconception. While it is perfectly understandable that it wants to drive focus on PS4 and PS VR, the company is now raking in plenty of cash and can afford to spread the love.

Sony has to face the fact that the Vita isn't going away, it might not sell in huge numbers, but Europe and Japan prove that it is doing well enough to merit some attention, beyond the occasional email to existing owners.

Yes, this may sound a bit ranty, but the Vita community puts in about 3,000% percent more effort to support the handheld than the company that made it. Which for a product that still on the shelves is pretty embarrassing for Sony!

Perhaps the mail-out will remind a few lapsed Vita users of the gaming goodness that awaits their dusty system, so yeah - there could be a point to it. But it still highlights the fact that Sony could, and should, be doing so much more.