Sony: No PS Vita price cut this year

Sony will not implement a price cut for the PlayStation Vita this year, Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer in a new interview. The executive explained that Sony engineers are currently working on methods to reduce the cost of manufacturing so a price cut can be possible, but that will not happen before the year is out.

"It's too early," Yoshida said.

The PS Vita launched in February 2012 with a Wi-Fi-only version at $249 and a Wi-Fi/3G model retailing for $299.

Instead, Yoshida said he hopes PS Vita software bundles--like the Little Big Planet and Call of Duty offerings announced this week--will be a significant enough value to steer prospective buyers toward a purchase.

"Of course, cost reduction is one area our engineering team is working on. But we just launched the platform earlier this year. It takes time to do so," he said. "At a certain point in the future we would like to address the pricing issue for some of the people who are waiting. But this year we are trying to add value by creating different types of bundles. We announced we will provide Little Big Planet PS Vita bundle pack. That's affordable for people who are looking for a good deal."

Sony has also been criticized for not offering enough PS Vita software support. Yoshida said Sony has acknowledged this concern, and noted that adding new content for the device is a principle priority.

"The reaction to the hardware platform itself has been very strong," he said. "We are very pleased with the response we got. It's up to our expectations in terms of what we were hoping for in bringing PS Vita to the market," he said. "But the actual sales of PS Vita, obviously we would like to see more uptake. We see lots of feedback from consumers saying they would like to see more content, they would like to see their favorite franchises coming to the PS Vita."

As for what kinds of new content Sony plans to bring to the PS Vita, Yoshida said it will run the gamut from major franchises to digitally distributed smaller titles.

"We have to continue to work on bringing more content from big titles people are looking for in terms of franchises, to very small, snack-sized, intuitive casual games on the digital distribution side," he said.

Big-name projects headed to the PS Vita include the previously announced Assassin's Creed III: Liberation and Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified, as well as the brand-new Killzone: Mercenary.