Is Sony pulling the plug on the Vita?
According to Dutch website Tweakers.net, Sony seems to have stopped sales of the Vita in the Benelux (The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg). Its Pricewatch section, which indexes thousands of products of major Dutch retailers has only one listing of the Vita left. They reached out to multiple retailers including Coolblue and Bol.com, and received mixed responses.
A spokesperson of Coolblue said that “the PlayStation Vita will no longer be sold, and we don’t expect it to return in our product range.” Bol.com, an official PlayStation retailer, says that the Vita currently isn’t in stock and that they don’t expect any more stock for some time.
Tweakers reached out to Sony Benelux for a reply on the situation, but did not receive a suitable reply. Sony simply comments that ‘there is nothing to report regarding the PlayStation Vita’ and that there will be no additional comments.
While Tweakers mentions that at their time of writing, there were several retailers listed on the Sony website, this is no longer the case. Sony’s official webshop currently says on it’s website: “unfortunately, this model is currently not available at our retail partners”, which makes it seem to me that they’re silently pulling the plug, at least for the Benelux region.
It’s not clear why they are no longer supplying stock to retailers in the Benelux area, as the Vita remains on sale in the rest of Europe. In countries like France, Germany and England, it’s still for sale on websites like Amazon and other online retailers.
While Sony has mentioned before that the Vita is a ‘legacy platform’, a production/sale stop has never been mentioned by them. They did mention that they were no longer going to develop first-party games for the platform, leaving it up to third-party developers to continue supporting the platform. With that mentioned, some developers are not giving up on supporting the Vita, such as DrinkBox Studios’ (the creators of Guacamelee!) recently announced Severed.
At this point in time, I’m not sure what to expect of Sony. The PlayStation TV has been canceled worldwide just recently, and they might just do the same with the Vita in a short period of time.
From my experience and perspective as a game developer, I’d no longer risk developing a title for the Vita, unless I could do it for a very small investment (e.g. porting a title already in development that easily lends itself to the Vita) and an almost guaranteed return on my investment, for example a popular IP that would sell a lot of games. And even then, I’m not sure I would do it. From what I know from the workplace, Vita sales have generally been poor and game development is still a risky and expensive business.
On the contrary, as a gamer I would love to see new and innovative IP, rather than just another port. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many titles like that which I enjoy to play, and it shows in my game collection. I’ve bought three times as many games for my 3DS than I purchased for my Vita, even though I prefer the Vita as a platform.
It’s a shame that this ‘chicken or the egg’-dilemma remains. Both gamers and developers are losers here, as the Vita is a great platform to develop for and an even better platform to play on.
What do you think? Will a spectacular release come and save the day, or will the console slowly bleed to death in the next couple of months?
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Vita is awesome, in some cases vita is a smartphone replacement to me 🙁
Sony pulled the plug with PSM, that was huge blow to me as a hobbyist.
If Sony ever working on next handheld, i hope they can pull most app devs into the ecosystem, well yeah game comes first but.. if they can nail multiple market then that’s not bad, right?
I would gladly ditch my smartphone if my handheld has better camera and apps. Also, web browser is not a panacea, it eats lots of memory, native app is always superior in performance. That will solve “multiple devices”‘ issue for some people. Basically we need gaming oriented smart-device (handheld), instead casual gaming smart-device (smartphone), because “dedicated” gaming device no longer selling as good as before.
im from belgium an i own a PSTV and a Vita. Sucks how the greatest handheld got f****d over by stupid mobile gaming if you ask me. My kid is 4 and plays ps1 and psp thanks to PSTV, no sucky tablet for him.
It got fked by Sony alone. If there is competition you face it, Sony, instead of putting fight escaped and blamed everione else. This is unforgivable.
Mobile gaming, android gaming is huge, and indeed full of ***, however thanks to freedom, huge user base, in the darkest receses of the poor gaming mania lie hidden gems, great games never to be seen on Vita and possibilities beyond imagination of this consoles small userbase.
You are a good parent, your kid will grow up knowing that games are more than just ‘time wasters’ for the train ride.
Mobile gaming DID NOT ruin the Vital, SONY ruined the Vita.
Lack of AAA titles, poor advertising and then to turn around and say they have changed their focus onto remote play for PS3 and PS4 for the Vita was the final nail in the coffin.
The problem with Sony’s handheld systems is Sony
So true. If mobile gaming was the problem. The 3DS would be suffering too but that isn’t the case.
The DS sold 150 million, the 3DS will end up selling maybe 60-70 million. The 3DS is also suffering because of mobile gaming. That said, there are more reasons than mobile gaming, both regarding Vita and 3DS, but mobile gaming is a big reason for it.
The DS was really inovative at its release. The 3DS wasn’t. 3D is only a gimmick and didn’t provide anything new like the dual screen did. That alone hurt the sales more than the mobile gaming. You really can’t have the same experience on your smartphone.
If it was *** hackable like the PSP, it would’ve been alive.
One important thing that Sony did that let’s say “didn’t help” is the absolutely ridiculous pricing points for the vita memory cards. Even now a very modest 32gb card is crazy expensive.
Everybody mentions this over and over… We all know the memory cards are overpriced, so you don’t have to remind us.
But on the other hand… I do agree with you; I think Sony seriously underestimated the impact this would have on their sales. We can only hope they’ve learned from their mistake and will do better in the future.
I also think they failed to advertise it enough (which is something I rarely say about anything), at least in NA. As an avid gamer, if there is something going on in the gaming world that interests me, I follow it and know a lot about it. So why didn’t I know much of anything about Vita until I got one last year (because they were cheap and I was specifically looking to get a new portable gaming device)? I mean, I know it existed (which is more than I can say about a lot of people) and that it had a back touchpad… But I didn’t even know the front screen was also a touchscreen or anything about its library (besides Little Big Planet and Hatsune Miku). My only guess as to the cause of my complete ignorance is that Sony did nothing to grab my attention sooner. They didn’t advertise the Vita, or at least not effectively and not in the right places. Software sells hardware, so there should have been more coverage on the unique Vita games that really draw people in.
I didn’t buy a Vita at launch because of the proprietary ***: usb connector and memory card.
I bought one used 2 years after for
for a cheap price, and got it with the memory card as a result.
Sony would have gotten my money from the start with µSD and µUSB.
Personally I think the impact of the memory cards is overrated. A small one is sufficient to play your retail games. Only the people that went digital or want to lug around their PS+ collection say that this is a show-stopper.
Exactly, some major title downloads from the PSN store take up gigabytes per game. Even the walking dead that I got for free filled most of the 4gb card that came with it.
And Sony heard us complain for years and never did anything with that. Their way or the highway. Well, here is the result.
Vita’s future seems cloudly… No AAA games…There are some interesting titles..but just personal preferences… I just love to use the beautiful oled screen with NES And SNES games…by the way..some of us just miss a tnv or vhbl via exploits…just like old times… =)
Sony pulled the plug way before now. We all knew that already
You sir deserve a cookie!
XD
I wonder if anyone is gonna be interested on such powerful handheld scene after it dies. Sigh…
VIta is already dead last year ever since P.T. failed
Actually most vita games sucks thats why it had poor sales they dont have the titles just like what psp have they dont even have a tekken or a nba in vita or other games like gta :(( Vita has good games but its so few thats why the vita is sinking so low
Such a shame though. The Vita is one heck of a magnificent handheld gaming device. It didn’t have to die like this…
Sad to say, but blame Sony. They’re the ones who decided to make a handheld; a large investment for devs and the consumer, locked it down far too tight that it used an overpriced memory format that doesn’t even come close to preforming as good as SD cards, waste time on “stability updates” instead of supporting the Vita, announced it was a legacy platform despite its age thus admitting it’s as good as dead. The list can go on and I can only hope it gets a kernel level hack someday so the community at the very least can turn it into something.
i have vita its cool . i dont thing its will be dead any soon
If we could have boycott ps4 just to remind sony to support vita. Next time i’ll just delay buying another sony gaming handheld unless it is fl
flooded by 1st party games. Kudos to Nintendo on Their support on 3DS
No one is going to boycott the PS4 to support the PS Vita. Most PS4 owners probably don’t own a Vita so therefore won’t give a f*ck about the PS Vita.
What is really sad is that its an amazing piece of hardware. There is NO other handheld so powerful and well equipped. I got a ps4 finally and when you figure out how to remoteplay…certain games…. its awesome.. Dont even bother remoteplaying bo3… you can and you will suck! but remoteplay brofroce… Idk why this wasnt also on the vita.. cos it works perfect.
In the end it really *** me off that I bought your equipment and know you are going to no longer support your product. BUT you will continue to protect your property we a purchased but you no longer care about? Thats effed. If you dont care than release the kernel
Horizon II would be perfect game for Vita 2.0
The PS Vita is actually the PSP 2. It even says so in the links the Vita uses to check for updates.
yes i knew it for a long time already
With them pulling the plug would it open it to more exploits?
I don’t think so
It was already secured as world bank
No kind of hack could penetrate vita 😛 (Otherwise we would have seen kernel hack for older firmware by now)
Hi could you not add or delete my last comments as it has my name on used auto fill and not changed name thanks
Sony’s gonna get you, Osama.
This was to be expected… the fruits of bad design decisions are finally catching up to sony and its vita/tv branch.
Proprietary memory cards… who does that? SONY does.
And the similarity to run of the mill smartphones… what where they thinking.
The vita has literally nothing (except that backside touchpad and there are not much titles using it) that distinguishes itself on the market.
It’s strongest competitor, the 3ds? has the very unique 3d feature and the critically acclaimed dual screen feature.
Maybe that comparison is not good, maybe the vita should be compared to smartphones rather than a real console.
But even then, it looses, most smartphones now support dedicated controllers via bt/wifi/usb otg… and also the quantity and quality of titles on smartphones is rising on both platforms ios and android.
I do not count windows phone and store, those are in the same boat as sonys vita and endangered from extinction.
MonHun would easily save the entire console. But I can’t see it happening.
No it wont, cause we aren’t all little *** playing lame rpgs.
I agree but i don’t really feel anything for MH recently, i stopped being MH fan that moment i felt the dev has 0 intention working on graphical leap. Too late for now, Sony should just slap Capcom with the money earlier, or just buyout whole Capcom.
It’s not that I care about it that much myself. But MH is a huge console seller.
> From my experience and perspective as a game developer, I’d no longer risk developing a title for the Vita
> (snip)
>From what I know from the workplace, Vita sales have generally been poor and game development is still a risky and expensive business.
PS Vita games do sell. But you have to target its demographic. Don’t be part of the problem by not making games for it.
I really do like the Vita as it has 2 analog sticks and buttons that make it much better choice for games that rely on buttons. The rear touch panel was the worst design choice as I could never get it to work right.
I’ve tried to play a mobile game that uses virtual buttons and it was a disaster for me to play. It was far easier to connect a controller and play the game that way.
The Vita TV could have been a hit but it having a smaller library than the Vita itself was bad. I liked the idea of a low profile, low power platform to play games designed for a standard PS3 controller like PSOne Classics and PSP Games.
Using a non standard memory card was definitely a bad idea. When most Vita games are several GBs that 32GB fills up fast. I have the 64GB and it’s still too small.
Iam from holland .
Almost every game shop doesnt sell that much games sometimes nothing.
For me it is a dead handheld .
Sd cards to expensive . The games suck the only game i like is gravity rush.
dude, one word: ”ePSP,,
Ook anywho vita was never popular to start with fact check the psp is still the most popular handhled while 3ds comes in by 3rd place only leaving a tie between ios and android devices for 2nd place. Id say maybe in another 6 years a dev will bother to dig into the vita then unlock its hidden potential until then dream on gamers!
To be honest, i’d like to see a “sony xperia play 2.0”, with some way of running android, and the vita OS. Dual-Booting is available on the vast majority of android phones (DualBoot Patcher), and it would be great. i’d ditch any phone for that
Smartest comment I’ve read so far. A decent spec Xperia phone with physical controls and the ability to emulate the Vita. Because if they do it properly emulating the Vita would also bring PSP and PS1 support. Modern octocore processors in phones are barely ever stressed by the average user (i.e. browsing/email/IM clients/whatever) and since Sony proved they can make the fairly unpowerful PSP emulate the PS1 near perfectly it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for a proper Vita emulator.
I bought the Vita the first day it came out. I didn’t think it would be that way with the lack of support and no great games coming out. I want to be refund… No, I will buy a PS4 and will get good use of remote play at least.
Until Sony remove the feature in a FW update……….. Just for stability, you know.
just immagine if vita could play android apps , i know its not about smartphone , but lets say a vita update with another PSN store in it only for android games.
imagine a device like that ….. 🙁
too bad , shame for u #sony
About time… I remember when I learned about that magical port the first vita version had was ditched on the next revision.With all that was going on from the beginning, that move just gave it away. This device was just a money grab from the beginning with. It has so much *** jammed into it so it would be more appealing to your average Joe and theyd better waste time on that thing rather than a smartphone and it worked… for a few years until most of the audience had seen trough this. Now its mainly your “powerful” device for your lil japanese schoolgirl rpg games and cliche american retro nerds.
Personally, I feel cheated. I don’t like the fact that I spent almost 200$ on a Vita and they have the audacity to just cut their support. I feel like there are so may different opportunities for the Vita to make it in the world. If there were a kingdom hearts or an infamous on Vita, sales would skyrocket. I mean, all kh games are connected one way or another so any die hard fan like myself wouldn’t hesitate to buy it. I hate the fact that every single day I use the Vita, I’m limited to lbp Vita and terraria. I want games that not only compliment the hardware but make me feel as if I spent 200$ on something that I could never get tired of. I have owned my Vita slim for 4 months and I’m already regretting buying it. Even the PS+ games disappoint me. I guess I’ll stick to using it as an extra controller for my ps4.
If you’re limited to LBP and Terraria, the obvious answer is to buy more games. If you’re looking for a game that compliments the hardware, try Tearaway. PS+ games will continue to disappoint you, because they always pick indies…
I would be so happy if devs could find a way to port PS2 titles to the vita, by having that I would not mind if sony kill the Vita itself.
Lately I am considering leaving the Vita and getting a 3DS (I do love the Vita and it hurts)
Just put a PS2 emulator on the vita, and you will see the sales growning up
Probably not. That’d require downloading PS2 games on expensive memory cards. And the average PS2 game is as big as your average PS Vita game.
In tge sony style stores here in Argentina Sony is selling vita games for 30 pesos each (less than 2 euros), as well as ps3 for 30, 50 and 100 pesos and ps4 games for 100 to 400 pesos
PPSSPP with PS Vita support, now I can actually see it in future.
Let’s make a comparison of the PS Vita to PSP models (As e all know newer generation of consoles should be an improvement over the previous generation).
I guess we all know what the advantages of the Vita over the PSP are (better screen , processor, more RAM etc). lets pinpoint what PSP had but the PS Vita does not have for unknown reasons.
TV Out: PSP 2k,3k,Go – Yes; PS Vita – No.
Standarized USB: PSP 1k, 2k, 3k, Street – Yes, PS Vita – No.
Hold switch: All PSP models – Yes, PS Vita – No.
Internal Memory: PSP Go – Yes (16 GB) , PS Vita 1k – No, 2k – Yes (1 GB , inaccessible if a memory card is inserted).
Non-Sony memory card support – Any PSP model – Yes, PS Vita – No.
Ability to play on the console without a battery (or with a dead / broken battery) – PSP 1k, 2k, 3k – Yes, PS Vita – No.
Ability to play Online (Infrastructure) through a b standard WiFi connection (5-11 Mbps) PSP 1l,2k,3k, Go – Yes , PS Vita 1k 3g (through a 3g Conection 14,4-21 Mbps) – No.
If the Vita was supposed to be an upgrade to hte previous generation – why does it lack some many details that have already been presented in the previous generation ?
I hope that Sony Will release a PS Vita 3k that would cover all the details mentioned above. That would liven the scene for sure.
your making a point, exept for non sony memory card support, it wasnt sony’s plan to be compatible with other memory cards.
however non of your points will make the vita sell more units.
kids these days play their phones and tablets and theres a a lack of triple a titles for most gamers those are the biggest points that make the system fail in my opinion
that look true but that is not true you know what i mean
I won mine in a contest and was excited, came with a 4gb card that filled up in 5 mins. *** sony. Vita started to further disappoint me about 4 months in afyer no good content was beong released. What happened to KH, what happened to socom we know this game was badass on the psp, why not bring it back. What happened to monster hunter, and a lack of a proprietary gta game, comeon. Any of these games would have made the vita a sales monster but the amount of garbage killed it. Mine has been a paper weight for a while now only to be picked up 2 or 3 times for remote play and i found that to have issues as well.
I would love a Disgaea 5 port. I don’t like playing Disgaea on a home console, but on a portable it’s great.
Agreed! However the vita had a pretty hard time even running Disgaea 4.
The lag was real sometimes!
This is just an opinion from me but the major problem with the Vita is that the platform is way too ahead of it’s time. In my perspective, it was meant by Sony as a replacement for the PSP because of security issues, such as piracy and such. We can clearly see from the way they approached security on the Vita, or any firmware update they issue, that they are clearly focusing on the wrong issue here. I’m not sure with this one, but I read somewhere that they even removed HDMI capability from the Vita as well as reduce RAM or VRAM of the Vita since it might win over the PS3 at that time, or technical limitations. Sony clearly killed their own system in this round, and clearly now, they are slowly stopping support for the product. Which is sad, since the console has a lot of potential. Too bad, It came at a wrong time, for me at least. Still, I love the Vita and Sony and still support some games that are released for the Vita~ <3
You know your could be right. Look at the Dreamcast and online gaming. They pave the way for the market to take it up wholesale in the future but first out of the gate normally gets burned sadly.
Sony, instead of adjusting to competition (more feautures, better prices, inovation, support of development) choose the easiest and most money saving way. Shows how much they care about gamers… that said I don’t believe this “discontinuation” talk will change that much. Vita will probably still be sold in Japan – sales there are terrible but still may be within profitable levels, but this is due to constant releases, better services – apps, online games, propaganda – colors, ads… etc. As for Europe, I went to general Tesco store, one of the biggest in my country year ago. They had 3 Vita games hidden under counter… Situation is better in game centric stores but still sucks. Digital purchases are out of question… still waiting for rejuvenate updates and Yifan Lu’s big comeback…
That said now that I have smartphone (yay, terrible vita’s browser goodbye, no more youtube terror), I’m not sure if I’ll go back even if sony single handedly revived vita, would depend on what would they bring but at this stage the only thing I care about is freedom. Even with shiatty games on g play… I still feel better… because of freedom… choice… and… Dink Smallwood. This game easily beats 99% of indie games being released on Vita in the west nowdays (+ there are other, mostly PC ports i’m interested in). The only thing I will miss are physical controls… and maybe cartridges.
Eh, there’s still a lot of games I’ve yet to play.
Project Diva X too.
so this means theres no psvitalinux development then ?
I live in Belgium and I can confirm that our biggest gaming retail store (Game Mania) does not have the PSVita in stock anymore, you can view the entry (PLAYSTATION VITA WI-FI SLIM + 8GB MC + LEGO ACTION HEROES MEGA PACK) but it says out of stock, I don’t know if this will change in the future as you can still pre-order games (heck, I have World of Final Fantasy pre-ordered since it was announced) and I was planning on buying Assassin’s Creed Chronicles .
While I have loved Sony from the beginning of the PS1 era, the way they treated the Vita these last couple of months and even years is ridiculous…