Some fans of Retro City Rampage were a little irked earlier today when it emerged that there will be a retail release for the PlayStation Vita version of Retro City Rampage DX. The games have previously only been available digitally for Nintendo platforms. Developer Brian Provinciano explained why this is the case on the Official PlayStation Blog.
I looked into both Wii and 3DS when determining which platform(s) to do a physical version for as well. Unfortunately, the minimum print runs, cost per unit and other factors lead to me not doing them. They would’ve been super cool, but it all comes down to projected cost and estimated risk. For example, I put in the work to get approval for releasing it unrated so it could have a lower retail price. Cartridges (whether it’s 3DS or PS Vita) also cost much more than discs to produce, so that meant PS Vita still wound up being $5 more than the PS4 blu-ray version — but I take the steps I can to keep costs low.
SimplyG

Fair reasoning
Doesn’t bother me personally. You must also keep it mind costs of packaging etc. can be very expensive.
Yea but why do it on the least selling handheld?
Maybe Sony made some sort of deal with them? I don’t know..
Wow I didn’t know 3ds cartridges cost more to make than Blue Ray discs. Thats a first for me. So 3ds games cost more to make, and they are still 20 dollars cheaper than Blue Ray games..
Yes but people are most likely involved in making a game on Blue Ray discs since there in home console than in cartridges in handheld console.
sales will be very low for a retail version. It just doesn’t need one…and on least popular hardware? I think these devs are clueless. How about making a different game and stop trying to milk this one?
It’s a limited run collector’s edition type thing. And not devs, just dev.
Exactly, Vita players and collectors will track this down. I’m part of a Vita community and some of the collectors are crazy, trying to get complete collections.
This hard copy of the game will sell out! Vita players are super dedicated and buy up hard copies of stuff like this.
Don’t care for this game anyway… I’m not even buying the digital version on my 3DS. It’s just a top down shooter with small sprite graphics.
fair enough. I would have purchased the game if it came retail for Wii / Wii U. Still not a fan of digital downloads with Nintendo yet.
Yet he still releases it in physical form on the deadest system out there..the Vita ?!?