Sony has announced that they will soon cease production of the PlayStation Vita in Japan, according to the PlayStation Japan website which labels the remaining two models as ending soon.
This news comes as no real surprise, as the well-received handheld has been at the back of Sony’s minds for some time now. Having released in Japan back in 2011 before making its way worldwide in 2012, the PlayStation Vita was supported by numerous big budget games and was praised by critics and players alike. It didn’t sell as well as Sony had hoped though, with the Nintendo 3DS outselling it considerably.
Sony has been focusing less and less on the Vita since then, with Shuhei Yoshida, Sony’s global head of first-party studios, mentioning in a 2016 interview with Gamespot that Sony’s focus had shifted to the PS4 and PS VR.
There has been no official word on what this news means for the console in the Western part of the world, but physical PS Vita games have already been discontinued in both Europe and the US, and the Vita has been described as “not an active line” outside of Japan as long ago as 2017.
For anybody who was hoping that this news means that Sony are working on a new handheld console then I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to rain on your parade – SIE senior vice president Hiroyuki Oda told Japanese magazine Famitsu last year that the company has no plans to produce a new handheld console.
Leave a Reply