The PS Vita started off life quite strong with a fair few big-name games releasing on the platform in the form of the little rectangular cartridges, something that’s becoming a bit of a rarity these days.
As prices for the PS Vita memory cards continue to drop (they’re still pretty expensive,) players are warming more to the idea of buying their games digitally from the PSN and as such, more and more games are leaving the retail route untouched as they release their wares digitally.
It makes sense from a business point of view as there’s less cost involved for packaging, shipping and so on. It doesn’t necessarily equate to better prices for players though as many digital releases still carry the same price as they would if they were sat on the shelves of your local retailer.
While the vast majority of Vita owners are buying more and more content from the PSN, not everyone is happy about it.
Koei Tecmo’s Chin Soon Sun recently spoke out against those who complain against digital-only releases, revealing that the firm did an experiment with Kiwami on the PS Vita and found that digital sales were better than physical.
People always got angry with digital only releases so we did an experiment on Kiwami PS Vita physical & it did bad, more on digital instead.
— Chin Soon Sun (@inspchin) May 6, 2015
This comes just after Koei Tecmo’s upcoming Ar nosurge Plus for the PS Vita was announced as having a limited physical release in North America. The limited release will come with a bit more ‘umpf’ than your regular release, but some players are still disappointed that the only physical release the game will have is a limited edition which will cost more than a regular release.
Still, for those who are dedicated to physical copies and don’t mind shelling out a few extra Benjamins for the privilege the limited edition will be welcomed with open arms.
So far the limited edition has only been confirmed for North America, though Koei Tecmo are negotiating for a release in the UK and Europe too.
@Linka13 we are negotiating for EU too. Hope EU gets the similar treatment. #KTfamily
— Chin Soon Sun (@inspchin) May 6, 2015
Ar nosurge Plus will be releasing digitally on the PS Vita from July 1st in the UK and Europe while our North American brothers and sisters will be getting it the following day.