According to European PlayStation boss Jim Ryan the female audience is "the untapped holy grail" for game publishers. When speaking to CVG about the PlayStation Vita, Ryan said he's hopeful that the Vita's "less intimidating interface" might make the portable handheld device more appealing to the female audience.
"That [audience] is obviously the untapped holy grail," Ryan said. "We're hopeful that the rather less intimidating interface possibilities that Vita offers may make that market potentially more accessible," he said in the interview.
"Some of the things as yet unrevealed on the content side are exploring that."
Ryan acknowledged that the "good old core gaming demographic" will be pleased with the launch of the Vita, but he did say that Sony "will look to… go younger rather more quickly and deliberately than we did with PSP."
"You won't see that so much in 2012, and in 2013 we'll still be very much at the core of it, but shortly after that a lot of the business strategy will be [based] around targeting a somewhat younger demographic."
After years of Sony caterging to core gamers, Ryan revealed earlier this month that the focus on the PS3 moving forward will be on a "slightly younger demographic, more family market." So the fact that the Vita will target a similar demographic shouldn't be too surprising.
It appears that Sony is taking a Wii approach to gaming, targeting a more casual, younger demographic. Regardless of how you feel about Nintendo's Wii, you can't ignore that it expanded the gaming industry to the family market and audiences who may never had interest in gaming before.
He also teased that there would be big news coming "at the back end of the year" for the PS3.
