Vita "having a more difficult time" securing publisher support, says Yoshida

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida has said Sony is having difficulties attracting third-party publishers to its new handheld console.

Speaking to OPM, as reported by IGN, Yoshida said Sony is “having a more difficult time than [they] had anticipated in terms of getting support from third-party publishers".

"But that’s our job," he added.

The executive noted that Sony is "very happy with the hardware and platform" and described the Vita as "an amazing gaming experience”, but noted that the market is always changing.

"Because of the growth of the social/mobile sector, lots of opportunities are being presented to publishers to choose from, and because the social/mobile side is the growing sector in terms of the business now, they are very quickly shifting their development resources to be part of that growing market," he said.

Yoshida sees strong potential for the handheld as a pltform for "smaller, independent developers".

"It’s very easy to develop content on PS Vita. More content and more games is the number one priority that we have to realize Vita’s potential," he said.

Sony chose to hide Vita sales figures in its last financial report, but revised its sales forecast of ortabl games from 16 million to 12 million, suggesting it hasn't performed as well as hoped.

Thanks, Shack.