Anti-gravity grief

So lately it would appear that rather than a sequel, Gravity Rush is getting a port... and as you'd expect people aren't too happy about that. Its not because of the whole sequel thing, if anything those guys are happy as this is still news from an unsure franchise that could mean hype building to that sequel, but Vita fans are sad for the Vita's sake. However not all of us are obviously, and I'd like to talk about why I see no harm whatsoever in this.

For starters, people who act like this is going to hurt the vita need to remember Gravity rush released back in 2012. It was demoed and shown off around the time the Vita was launching to build your anticipation. If this game hasn't incentivized you to buy a Vita as it should have, then why would you suddenly run out and grab it now 3 years later. If you buy the Vita at this point, you're expectations of its future should be into the field of japanese games, Indies on the go, or for some weird reason as a companion app to Sony's other consoles. Sure you can grab some great exclusives that are already out there, but almost every single one short of Freedom Wars is at least like a year old at this point (and FW is kind of old news at this point as well) and its nothing new that was excitingly pulling you in with a fierce tug.

On top of that guess who else isn't going to be buying much of Gravity Rush? Vita owners themselves. We're looking at a number of about 10 million or so systems sold at this point, but the number of sold games at retail stays around a comfy number well under 1 million. While this doesn't include digital, its pretty safe to assume that between the sales, give-away + version, and memory card restraints that Gravity Rush wasn't making too big of a profit there either. I'm also going to plead guilty here, there were better things for me at the time of Gravity Rush and I instead relied on my sister's copy once she bought it, and then the + version later as it was available. My point here is, why not give a well loved game that undersold on a slow selling platform to a bigger more alive platform with a lot of the same fan interest in the game? PS4's a perfect fit for this case, and a real test to see if people are interested in this idea. Personally I'm grateful anything at all is being done to help out this IP.

The other thing I would like to note here is that unlike the Tearaway thing, this actually benefits the game in a natural way. All touch motions and whatnot aside, Gravity Rush was an open world super hero game with in-game gravity powers. You could tilt the system to help with gravity flying, but you could also just use the right stick as most people would. Its a fine fit for consoles, and loses so very little in the face of a port. Actually I'd rather have the share features that are built in, and see if they try anything with the touchpad bit. In other words it ain't rocket science to figure that a port could work, and better yet a port to a bigger platform might just improve or add something to the experience (I doubt they'll do much, but it can happen).

So with all being said and done, what really happens if we see Gravity Rush get onto PS4? What harm does it do to the Vita, a console already considered dead with minimal support? I don't like that fact, but Gravity Rush's news has changed absolutely nothing about the situation. It isn't killing it even further, if anything its actually more of the other way around: They actually care enough about one of the few classics to bring it to a new audience, and try to keep it relevant. To that, I say good luck and I might be there to buy the game as well this time around. Oh... and if you're still convinced they hate vita owners, you could go and check out the flash sale where gravity rush is $1, and that's a major edge us lucky guys get that home console only types wont see when they get the chance to play it. So there's that as well. This move isn't an insult to vita owners, far from it. Instead its a great game from the Vita being offered to a wider audience supposedly without any compromises (other than lack of portability). Don't be silly and find some dumb reason to be offended by this move. Its not against you, and if you don't like who it is for then simply look at it like any other product you don't want and buy something else instead. Of course... all this hasn't totally been confirmed yet and it could all just be a goofy rumor, so bare that in mind to. Now that being said, I'd still love it if Sony actually does do something directly for the Vita. It'd be nice if they actually bothered to acknowledge that they have around 10 million users out there somewhere at this point, they just might buy a new game on the system.