Irrational: No BioShock PS Vita until Sony and 2K Games work out a deal

[Kuro]

Irrational Games' Ken Levine says that BioShock Vita is no closer to release than it was when first announced back at E3 2011. The reason: Sony and Take-Two Interactive are still working out the business kinks.

BioShock Infinite has been delayed yet again, bumped from February 2013 into March to allow Irrational Games to polish its adventure game to a fine sheen. From the sounds of Digital Trends’ latest preview, the sequel will be well worth the wait. Now that BioShock Infinite is in the home stretch, 2K Games will naturally turn its eye towards the fourth BioShock game it has announced, namely the untitled BioShock side story for PlayStation Vita. Patient Vita owners shouldn’t hold their breath for that game, though. It isn’t coming out anytime soon.

BioShock creative mastermind Ken Levine said that while he’s got a good plan for the game, Sony and 2K Games are still working on the business side of things.

“Where the Vita stands right now, it’s in the hands of the business people at Take-Two and the business people at Sony working out, hey, what happens in these business discussions,” Levine told Eurogamer, “Fortunately I don’t have to take part in it any more because I sold my company a long time ago. [BioShock Vita] is something I’m still very interested in. I still have a cool design for it. It’s a question of, do those guys come to find the right mix that makes everybody happy to make that happen?”

Levine announced BioShock for PS Vita during Sony’s E3 2011 press conference, saying it would be an original title and not a port of Infinite. That still holds true according to Levine. Why announce a game that hasn’t even moved into pre-production though?

“Sony was launching this platform and it was important that they had a show of support from people no matter what stage of development they were at. Sony has been such a good partner to us, and I’m not just blowing smoke. [I] tried not to oversell it when I went out there. I just said, ‘We’re doing this.’ I didn’t want to present something that I didn’t have a lot of clarity on at that point.”

Sony confirmed a number of major publishing and development partners for the platform when it first announced the PS Vita but in the 18 months since that E3 press conference, support for the system has languished. A partnership with Activision to bring the Call of Duty series to PS Vita didn’t result in a console-style shooter but Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified, a barebones arcade style shooter with limited multiplayer. The last thing Take-Two Interactive needs is to commit one of its growing brands to Sony’s handheld only to release a subpar product to a miniscule audience.

Digital Trend

[F34R]

Basically they are telling Sony to get more fucking people to own the Vita by cutting the cost of the handheld, and memory, and then they'll get that game done.

[radgamer420]

Basically they are telling Sony to get more fucking people to own the Vita by cutting the cost of the handheld, and memory, and then they'll get that game done.

Thats it right there. So now the ball is in Sony's court.

[Kuro]

Bundle it for 199.99 with a cool skin and a 4gb lol. Damn Sony!

[F34R]

I doubt they, Take2, wanna spent oodles of money and there isn't enough install base worldwide to warrant the costs.

[radgamer420]

Sony is sinking their own platform with their ridiculous prices for memory coupled with the hardware price tag.

[Nitey]

Yeah F34R. Pretty much the same thing for most 3rd party developers. Sony have to ensure the install base is there and then we'll start seeing more 3rd party games.

If I remember correctly, Konami UK said on twitter the reason we didn't see PES13 on Vita is because install base.

[F34R]

Yeah F34R. Pretty much the same thing for most 3rd party developers. Sony have to ensure the install base is there and then we'll start seeing more 3rd party games.

If I remember correctly, Konami UK said on twitter the reason we didn't see PES13 on Vita is because install base.

Here ya go:

Konami won't bother releasing PES 2013 on PS Vita, in favour of focusing on wider audiences.
Senior producer Naoya Hatsumi told CVG that there won't be a PES game on Vita this year. However, the development team is experimenting for a title in the future.
"There will not be a Vita version of PES this year," Hatsumi said. "But we are not saying that we are ignoring PS Vita - that's not the case. We have been exploring the possibility of having a PS Vita version. We keep experimenting."

Instead, Konami is looking to capture the lucrative smartphone and tablet markets for portable players.
"Because of the change of lifestyle, for example users now use iPad and iPhone, they can play football games if they want to. That means we're not just limited to console users.
"Wider users now have potential access to video games. That's what we want to do; we would like as many potential users as possible to play Pro Evolution Soccer."

Vita users will have to wait until PES 2014, assuming Konami moves forward with its experiments.

[coolguy]

People should boycot this game when it comes out for the vita

[F34R]

People should boycot this game when it comes out for the vita

Why?

[Nitey]

That would be the last thing people should do ! lol

[brebaz]

I think Sony need to drop the price soon. A $149-$180 would be the sweet spot right now, and the vita would sell like hotcakes.

We're not seeing enough games because of the price point. That is not god for us consumers.

[Shin Asura]

The portable market shifted to tablets for the majority so I doubt we're going to see this game