Sony reaffirms that they do NOT plan to create a Vita successor

consoles-psvita-model-2000-black-640px-en.png

With the Nintendo Switch taking the gaming market by storm, it seems like there's a perfect climate for Sony to step in and create a handheld to compete with Nintendo's hybrid, much like they've done in the past, with the PSP and PS Vita. However, Sony Interactive Entertainment's CEO, Andrew House, disagrees, and is quoted as saying the following during an interview with Bloomberg JP.

The Nintendo Switch is a hybrid device, thus it has a completely different strategy from the PlayStation. We are focusing our attention on products that can specifically be played from the living room. We do not see potential in the handheld market.

It seems PlayStation has been adamant about there not being a new PlayStation handheld, as House has been quoted as saying such multiple times. What do you think? Is the handheld market too saturated thanks to the rise of smartphones, or that after the DS and 3DS dominating the PSP and Vita, it's high time that Sony relent and focus on their flagship PS4? Or that Sony is missing out on a huge opportunity?

:arrow: Source
 

rileysrjay

Connoisseur of all things Morshu
Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2016
Messages
1,121
Trophies
1
Age
23
Location
Koridai
XP
2,285
Country
United States
That's the point. If Sony did the right thing couple years ago just like Nintendo to the 3DS:Vita decided to upgrade instead downgrading with cheaper material for the Slim. New Vita with micro sd card reader, add UMD drive to bring back the PSP faithfuls, adding more game... And a bit of luck with homebrew scene make the same breakthrough as 3DS back then; arguably Vita scene would beat 3DS. 3DS won due to both luck and good strategy. If Nintendo happens to have approach similarly to Sony with the 3DS by only looking to downgrade design with cheaper material, and show lack of support in term of games, noone would touch a 3DS. It looks too childish design wise and without games to play with, it's awkward to carry around. You can't use 3ds for music with closed lid ffs (I meant using the built in speaker)
Well, in a way Nintendo did make a downgrade with the 2ds, but at least they were highly strategic with it and the price point of it unlike the Vita revision. The newer Vita models look pretty plasticy and childish as well imo. Even if Sony had done a good job with the revision I still think the Vita wouldn't have done that well; it still needed that first party support from Sony and some good third party support too and it had a limp leg from the start in the form of the proprietary cards.
 

Hyborix3

Gabi
Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2009
Messages
246
Trophies
0
XP
666
Country
Canada
Shame, a hybrid PS4 portable console is the only thing I wouldn't mind from them as they have a nice library of games/ indies on it. Then again they don't really knew how to sell the Vita handheld with the overpriced memory card, little marketing and lack of first party. Even the Vita TV was a mess...
 

p1ngpong

Gamer Professional Deluxe
Supervisor
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
6,871
Trophies
3
Location
DS Scene
Website
imgur.com
XP
11,342
Country
Croatia
I think it speaks a lot about Sony that they still support the vita with updates and it is still getting a trickle of games consistently. People who keep demanding Sony "admit the vitas dead" and cut off support for it just come across as imbeciles to me. Isn't it a good thing that they are supporting a device people invested in for far longer than anyone would expect?

Anyway I fully agree with @Foxi4 that it is a fucking crying shame the vita didn't have a better run. It would have benefited everyone if it was more successful. It was a perfectly designed gaming machine and in my opinion makes the original 3DS look like a piece of badly designed trash in comparison in practically every respect.
 

CMDreamer

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2014
Messages
1,659
Trophies
1
Age
38
XP
3,417
Country
Mexico
"We do not see potential in the handheld market."

Translation:

We screwed it really big with the Vita, we're afraid of even trying it again.

The Vita is a great handheld for sure, but on the hands of that crap brand owner it got reduced to what all user with a firmware > 3.60 have on their hands.

Most are crap games, depending on an anime for their existence. Even though I like anime, don't like crap games based on them. Even so, that most of those games were third party, that crap brand owner created just more crap as games to try to compete with other handhelds.

And I agree, that crap brand owner's plans are to get only "refurbished" games from old consoles, nothing new on sight, nothing really innovative from them.

And no, VR gaming is not the future.
 

tivu100

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2015
Messages
2,260
Trophies
0
Age
34
XP
1,136
Country
United States
I think it speaks a lot about Sony that they still support the vita with updates and it is still getting a trickle of games consistently. People who keep demanding Sony "admit the vitas dead" and cut off support for it just come across as imbeciles to me. Isn't it a good thing that they are supporting a device people invested in for far longer than anyone would expect?

Anyway I fully agree with @Foxi4 that it is a fucking crying shame the vita didn't have a better run. It would have benefited everyone if it was more successful. It was a perfectly designed gaming machine and in my opinion makes the original 3DS look like a piece of badly designed trash in comparison in practically every respect.
Fully agree. Just annoyed about how miserably Vita failed than feeling the need for a new Sony handheld gaming console. Even the New 3DS ain't that good design. How they hide the memory card slot is annoying. New 2DS XL has the best design doesn't match Vita 1000's feel. If only Vita were a success, it would have benefited gamer more, as that would mean the future handheld need to step up big time given Vita's spec potential was very high.
 
Last edited by tivu100,

ThoD

GBATemp Addict (apparently), but more like "bored"
Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2017
Messages
3,631
Trophies
1
Age
27
XP
3,049
Country
Greece
Let's all be honest here, compared to how great the PSP was, the Vita was so bad it was the Sony equivalent of the WiiU! It hardly got any decent titles, TOO many security fixes and even the interface was kinda annoying to name some issues. At least they can now focus on the main PS series more and improve it enough to warrant a purchase:P Not saying that Vita was all bad though, it had quite a nice backwards compatibility, allowed for a lot of control in games and was comfortable to hold, but that was pretty much it.
 

duffmmann

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
3,966
Trophies
2
XP
2,305
Country
United States
Whether or not Sony has intentions of releasing a similar hybrid system, I wouldn't expect them to announce so until a product is nearly finalized, and until then they'd just deny that such a device is even in development. So i just take a claim like this with a grain of salt these days.
 

tivu100

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2015
Messages
2,260
Trophies
0
Age
34
XP
1,136
Country
United States
Whether or not Sony has intentions of releasing a similar hybrid system, I wouldn't expect them to announce so until a product is nearly finalized, and until then they'd just deny that such a device is even in development. So i just take a claim like this with a grain of salt these days.
Hmm. But if they're not planning to marketing for the new console while the current handheld console looks like dead beaten, then it would take years if we look at how Nintendo handles Switch situation. They had New 3DS generation selling well. They didn't go out their way to shoot down NX rumor for the sake of 3DS. They just found a way to smooth thing out with NX was rumored as a hybrid console to with main aim to replace dead beaten Wii U. Even when Switch portability was confirmed, 3DS was backed to get more games.

The way Sony acts, it doesn't sound good marketing wise. Taking their word literally, it sounds depressing for the handheld gaming scene.
 
Last edited by tivu100,

duffmmann

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
3,966
Trophies
2
XP
2,305
Country
United States
Hmm. But if they're not planning to marketing for the new console while the current handheld console looks like dead beaten, then it would take years if we look at how Nintendo handles Switch situation. They had New 3DS generation selling well. They didn't go out their way to shoot down NX rumor for the sake of 3DS. They just found a way to smooth thing out with NX was rumored as a hybrid console to with main aim to replace dead beaten Wii U.

But i wouldn't expect them to announce a new device that isn't finalized or a done deal at this point. I'm sure at the very least they're doing some R&D right now to determine whether they should give such a device a go, and if they did what that might look like. Just because they're probably looking into it, is no guarantee that anything would ever come from it. As such right now, the best thing to do would say that they have no plans for such a device. And then should things progress and they decide that they should move beyond research and prototyping, then that would be a much more logical time to start teasing that such a device may be on its way.
 

netovsk

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,026
Trophies
0
XP
736
Country
Brazil
It's ok Sony makes money mostly from selling AAA releases like BF, CoD and FIFA to people who don't have a gaming PC and Vita won't allow that so from a financial standpoint the decision to withdraw from the handheld market makes sense.
 

rileysrjay

Connoisseur of all things Morshu
Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2016
Messages
1,121
Trophies
1
Age
23
Location
Koridai
XP
2,285
Country
United States
They plan on making a PSP successor ;) Wording.

It'll happen. I'm sure of it. And when it does I'll be SO ready.
Don't think so, if we're judging off what the representative said:
“The Nintendo Switch is a hybrid device, thus it has a completely different strategy from the PlayStation,” House said. “We are focusing our attention on making products that can be played in the living room. We do not see big potential in the handheld market.”
 

Futurdreamz

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2014
Messages
2,276
Trophies
1
Age
31
XP
2,118
Country
Canada
literally the whole selling point if the PS4 was that it was the most powerful console ever, but with the XbOX that is no longer true. I think finding a way to portableize the PS4 (with backwards compatibility) should be heavily considered at least, unless they think they can win the graphics race that has already passed the point of diminishing returns. They seem to be doubling down on vr, not sure how that will go.

if anyone comes out with a true Sword Art Online esque thing it will probably be Sony. They might be researching direct neural interfacing now.
 
Last edited by Futurdreamz,
  • Like
Reactions: DarthDub

ov3rkill

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
May 10, 2009
Messages
1,675
Trophies
1
Location
in a cardboard box
XP
2,092
Country
Australia
Sony could just upgrade Vita. Take some inspiration on the Switch. Use the latest OLED tech or high refresh rate IPS. And they're good to go. Heck, they could just re-use the OS on PS4 but repurpose for the handheld or something. Get some exclusives like what they did on God of War on the PSP. They have enough exclusives to create some spin-off or milk some franchises.

I was loving the exclusives on the Vita including, Soul Sacrifice, Freedom Wars, Uncharted, Killzone, Resistance, etc. and some ports were freakin' cool as hell. Too bad they just declared the Vita a legacy which didn't help at all. They didn't even give it a chance. They could've refreshed it like what Nintendo does with upgraded CPU, more buttons :lol:, etc. Declaring it a legacy console while some games are still coming is a kick in the nuts to the devs and publishers. That's bad marketing. You see Nintendo is still telling us that the Switch won't replace the 3DS. We all know it will in due time. It's a slow transition as there are still a lot of 3DS owners out there. Just like what the GBA to DS to 3DS was.

They should've learned from there mistakes and not give up. They sure make one hell of a console. Then again, if they won't make a handheld anymore, I hope we'll get to see some of their IP on the Switch. :rofl2:
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    SylverReZ @ SylverReZ: @salazarcosplay, Morning