Shuhei Yoshida: The PlayStation TV was Difficult to Explain to Consumers

You win some, you lose some. That's a common creed spoken after defeat, and, in this case, relevant to the bomb of the PlayStation TV. In an interview with Game Informer, Sony president Shuhei Yoshida delved into the sales of the PlayStation TV.

This device, having launched on November 14, 2013 in Japan (October 14, 2014 in North America and November 14, 2014 in Europe), was a considerably cheap $99.99. It was a micro-console variant of the not-too-popular PlayStation Vita. However, it didn't sell as well as Sony hoped, to the point that the price dropped to an official $39.99. The reasons?

First of all, the concept of the PlayStation TV has always been difficult to explain to the crowd. I can believe that, considering I wasn't sure what exactly it did either at the beginning. To quote Yoshida on the matter:
 

"You could say it's a mini-console, it's a video streaming device. If we say it's a mini-console, like other mini-consoles, people expect a better device like PS4 or Xbox One. It's short in that delivery. When you say it's a video streaming device, there are other devices with higher def video. It has some unique things like remote play of PS4 games."

This could be read as "The PlayStation TV is a device that does everything mediocre." Additionally, the purpose still remains confusing, and that is why people avoid it.

The second reasoning is somewhat similar to the first:
 

"It can do many things, but it's not easy to say this one thing is extremely good. I think that's the reason we were not able to convince people at the original price."

In other words, it's professional speak for, "It's kinda meh."

It probably didn't help the PlayStation TV that the Vita is now a legacy platform now, which sounds awesome, but it just generally means it's unpopular:

"We are not making games like Killzone Mercenary, big budget Vita games anymore. The expectation of the graphical quality and size of the world for these types of games have risen after the launch of the PlayStation 4. The same thing happened with the PSP. People were so excited to be able to play PS2 graphics games on the go. After the PS3 launched, expectations grew. The types of games on PSP were not as attractive."

In other words... have we grown too expectant of graphical quality as gamers now? Fortunately, there are visual novels, JRPGs, and niche indie titles still coming to the gorgeous handheld, but as for AAA titles, we can wave goodbye.