Indie Developer Chris McQuinn: “Honestly, Vita Owners are the ****ing Best”

The PS Vita is having a rough time. When compared to its competition, the Nintendo 3DS, it is trailing far behind. In terms of sales, the 3DS is dominating. That does not mean that the Vita is not a capable device, according to Chris McQuinn of Drinkbox Studios, the studio behind Guacamelee! To him, the Vita can make money, as the Vita’s audience is hardcore.

In a conversation with Games Industry International, McQuinn stated:

“Honestly, Vita owners are the ****ing best. People rag on the Vita so much, and I think people who rag on the Vita don’t understand, at least from a business perspective, the purchasing power of Vita owners. Vita owners are serious purchasers of games. It’s an amazing system.”

McQuinn did admit that the PS3 version of Guacamelee! outsold the Vita version, but not by too much. He stated:

“I think that speaks to the strength of the Vita as a console to sell your game on because there are so many more PS3s than Vitas. For us, the sales on the Vita were really, really strong. It was a great SKU for us.”

Mcquinn continued:

“If people don’t see the Vita doing the same number of sales as the 3DS, then it’s automatically a failure. But I think what people fail to understand is the purchasers of Vitas are very, very engaged game consumers. For them, the attach rate with games is very high. There might not be a lot of Vitas out there, but the people who do own Vitas are very serious consumers; they buy a lot of games.”

I agree with McQuinn. I own more PS Vita games than I do 3DS games.

To be quite honest, the only two 3DS games that I have played in the past few months were Mario Party and Pokemon Y. I constantly use my Vita for games, remote play, and the apps, such as the Crunchyroll app. I am anticipating more games on the Vita than I am the 3DS, such as Mind Zero, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, and Hyperdimension Neptunia PP. I would love to see the Vita flourish, and I hope Sony finds a way to better support the Vita. It is a good piece of hardware, and deserves a bit of spotlight.