The PlayStation Vita has had quite the rocky life; since its middling launch in 2011 Sony had mostly left the handheld out to die, quickly pulling away from supporting it with first party content. Meanwhile, indie and Japanese games flourished on the platform thanks to a small but loyal userbase. Now it's 2018, and the Nintendo Switch has been quietly smothering the remaining life out of the Vita. A few months ago saw Sony mention that physical game cartridges for the system would come to a halt. Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment's VP admitted that PlayStation Vita systems in Japan would finally be put to rest in 2019, when the company plans to end production. Perhaps more notably, he also stated that Sony PlayStation has no plans for a successor or handheld gaming console at this time.

Source: Famitsu
If you're interested in games for the PlayStation Vita, check out our highlights list

 

[the_randomizer]

Agreed, shoulda had our own SDcard function so we could "load more backups"

It was a big turnoff for me *shrug*

 

[invaderyoyo]

...and shmups, and versus fighters, and 3d action games, and FPS's, and survival horror, and racing games... and all the other genres the 3ds doesn't really represent.

Yeah, some genres were close to nonexistent on the 3ds. I love rhythm games and the 3ds has almost nothing. The Vita has 3 Project Diva games, 3 Persona Dancing games, DJMax Technika Tune, Superbeat: Xonic, IA/VT Colorful, Cytus Lambda and maybe more I can't remember.

3DS has what? Project Mirai and Theatrhythm? (relatively weak rhythm games, btw) No others come to mind.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Whew, 2 years shy of your 10 year promise Sony! How dare you!

Not surprised they kept producing them this long, though. Vita has tons of games catered to JP and weebs and such, despite little interest they're still selling somewhat ok in JP.

 

[mituzora]

I wanted to like the Vita, I really did. But despite this criticism being a dead horse in this thread, it was ultimately the Memory card that killed it for me. I don't like the idea of downloading proprietary apps to simply transfer data either. The over-protection and proprietary memory cards that they put in place to deter piracy(which as devs always do, they found away to fix this) is what killed it. at least memory sticks were co-developed and licensed out so other manufacturers can make them and have a competitive market.

Let me transfer stuff through windows explorer and give me Memory sticks or SD cards and you would have been golden. I don't care if you could pirate it or not. My PSP(and many other's that I knew) constantly was used for an MP3 player, and I hate the fact that I could no longer use any program to sync with it. I was super ecstatic when vitaShell came out with UMS support!

 

[AdenTheThird]

This is why I support Nintendo.

 

[tinbs]

Shame. my vita is still close to my heart. A lot of good games still stuck on there.

 

[DeoNaught]

I didn't know it was still going LOL

still want to get a VITA to hack it

 

[AkitoUF]

If memory cards weren’t too expensive, I’d buy a vita again to hack it...then again I have hacked psp 3000 somewhere

Or just get an SD2Vita which is dirt cheap and hack it right away.

 

[samcambolt270]

I'd get one and hack it if a decent sized memory card wasn't so absurdly expensive. I'm not going to pay 200 bucks for a console that only comes with, what, a 2 gig card? I can't even put one good game on that. If I want one that you can put maybe 5 games on, I gotta pay another 40-50 bucks? no thanks.

 

[bowser]

Wait a min this thing is still being produced?

 

[EmulateLife]

As someone who's owned practically every console and handheld the Vita has to go down IMO as one of the most disappointing of all of them. Beautiful graphics for a handheld, the best. But the games just weren't there. It's like Sony gave up on it too soon and 3rd party followed suite. I never get rid of consoles/handhelds but I sold my Vita in it's prime around 2014 and never regretted it or wanted to buy another one.

 

[EmulateLife]

Please delete

 

[EmulateLife]

Double post.

 

[Pokem]

The Vita is an amazing console...
I adore mine. Sad to see it ending production... especially in Japan since Vita is huge over there isn’t it?

 

[cvskid]

Don't get the point of a firmware update for the ps vita right before they announce they are ending support for the system/stop making it.

 

[Ryab]

hahah they finally realized it's been dead (for years)

best thing about it were ports and homebrew

 

[Deleted User]

I habe 2 PSTV and 1 OLED/1 LCD Vita and thinking of getting one more before production shuts down. My favorite handheld of all time

PS: I didn‘t miss Sony‘s support at all (even I wouldn‘t have minded it)

 

[EmulateLife]

Other than Switch which is a console/handheld hybrid, is this the end of handhelds? (other than mobiles) Sony isn't making another one, Nintendo could decide to make a successor to 3ds (which is also almost dead) or just stay with Switch. Maybe Nokia will make N-Gage 2.

 

[Tarmfot]

Exactly. Today Ngage 2 or Xperia Play 2 are the way to go.

 

[Deleted User]

Exactly. Today Ngage 2 or Xperia Play 2 are the way to go.

Even if I play a lot on my iPhone the genres are totally different compared to a gaming device. Lots of games aren‘t possible/playable on a phone (same as the mail clients and web browsers on 3DS/Vita - please stick to gaming only and cut all other features because for that I have a smartphone).

 

[AkitoUF]

I've spent a lot of time with different Nintendo portables since I'm more of a portable guy and playing at home. A couple of years ago I acquired an used PSP and after hacking good lord I gave it a lot of use. A couple of months I bought an used Vita and it's the same story repeating itself.
I'm not interested at all in japanese VNs and that but I'm finally able to play Super Robot Wars V and X and a lot of other RPGs and games, not to mention it being my new retro portable emulator for almost everything. The Vita is amazing and one can only hope how hackers can expand on its potential.

I'm happy I got the Slim model, I value having an universal port for charging more than anything else. People really drool over OLEDs more than they should I think because they always recommend the Fat model and only mention the screen and that's it. I think the Fat's flaws are way to big.

I just hope SNES on Retroarch was a little bit better.