It’s no great secret the PS Vita is underwhelming Sony when it comes to sales. The disappointing launch line up coupled with both a high price tag and the need to purchase expensive proprietary memory cards have damaged the console’s initial run with regards to sales, but Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has hatched a cunning plan to help boost sales.
The idea is a simple rebrand, out with the market researched “Vita” and in with the newly proposed “3DSP”. The move comes from a survey Sony ran in Tokyo, where they asked people what their favourite handheld console was. The response was overwhelmingly in favour of the DS, 3DS, and PSP. The Vita, meanwhile, featured extremely low down on the list, below the Sega Game Gear and the Nokia 1200.
“We believe this rebrand isn’t a cynical marketing move,” said Harish Kanjani, head of cynical marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. “We think we’re simply clearing up what exactly the 3DSP is. Many people go into a shop saying they want a 3DS or a PSP and fail to realise that what they actually want, or I should say, what they mean is they want the 3DSP. By making the console similar in name we hope more people will by a 3DSP by acci- erm… with a greater understanding of the product. Yeah, that’ll do.”
The 3DSP models will be available next week in Japan and will be bundled with Monstra Hunter, a 1st part title maybe by Sony’s Cambridge studio that features the hunting of “Monstras” so as to improve the player characters weapons and armour. The cynical marketing department has called it a “triumph of copyright law”.
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