PlayStation Vita didn’t quite gain the same attention as everything else the company offers, and Sony finally put the system to rest. Sony has officially decided to discontinue the PS Vita. If you’re still interested in the PS Vita, you’ll be lucky to find it at a retailer. It may be better to find one second-hand, although if you see prices of these units skyrocket because of the discontinuation, it might not be worth getting.
Quite honestly, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Sony has been on the route to phase-put first-party games since 2015, discontinuing physical games and ending all of the freebies for PS Plus.
Sony’s PS Vita originally launched on December 11 in Japan. Mind you, this was when phone and tablet gaming starting to take off. Sony was trying to sell everyone on a dedicated handheld gaming unit while the phone and tablet gaming era took off. This didn’t sit well with the market because the Vita didn’t enjoy much shelf life, otherwise it would still be around, long-supported.
Unfortunately for Sony, it wasn’t just the consumer market that showed disinterest in the Vita. While there were high-quality game titles like Severed available on the handheld console, lack of sales led developers away. There was also severe competition from Nintendo, which also didn’t help.
There doesn’t seem to be a plan for a Vita sequel. Mobile gaming is still growing at a good pace, and competition from the Nintendo Switch would only bring more harm to Sony’s efforts. Sony already knows that its PS4 consoles are doing very well, so it should continue to focus that route.
