Shigeru Miyamoto: Vita needs post-launch software

Shigeru Miyamoto recently praised the hardware specifications of Sony's PlayStation Vita, but said the device is lacking software to show off its capabilities in a recent Edge interview.

Shigeru Miyamoto recently praised the hardware specifications of Sony's PlayStation Vita, but said the device is lacking software to show off its capabilities, in a recent Edge interview.

"It's obviously a very hi-spec machine, and you can do lots of things with it," Miyamoto said during a press demonstration of the 3DS' Louvre guide application. "But I don't really see the combination of software and hardware that really makes a very strong product."

The Vita currently finds its sales diminishing in both Japan and the U.S. — a slump also experienced by the 3DS shortly after its launch, one severe enough to cause president Satoru Iwata to take a 50 percent pay cut. Miyamoto attributes both dips to a weak post-launch release line-up; a ditch that Nintendo only managed to dig itself out of with a price cut and a few first-party titles late last year.

"When we launched the 3DS hardware we didn't have Super Mario 3D Land, we didn't have Mario Kart 7, we didn't have Kid Icarus: Uprising," Miyamoto said. "We were striving to have all of these ready for the launch, but we weren't able to deliver them at that time.

"We were kind of hoping that people would, nevertheless, buy into the product, find 3DS hardware promising, but looking back we have to say we realize the key software was missing when we launched the hardware."

Sony has a number of titles scheduled to come out later this year on the Vita, including Resistance: Burning Skies, Gravity Rush, Persona 4 Golden and LittleBigPlanet. Whether any of these will be the killer app Miyamoto thinks the Vita needs remains to be seen.