Sony says it is "no longer" interested in making handheld consoles.

[TazDevilz1986]

 

Will this be less stacks in the future and less lazy trophy lists? Who knows. To be continued.....

 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by TazDevilz1986

[AK-1138]

 

Anyways, yeah, portable gaming is totally dead, isn't it Sony?

[hsn963]

Are they not confident enough to compete with Nintendo in this regards ?.

[freddie1989]

Not upset about this, the last one had no decent games on it and just led to cheap stacks. I would rather they focus on better games and leave the handheld out.

[TJ_Solo]

I don't think that they have enough mascots, devs, or money to provide 1st party support for 3 gaming devices.
The space that a portable system lived in is now being taken over by crap like PS Now.
Plus, they might be less than impressed with the number of pirate games on the PSP and the low hardware sales of the Vita.
 

[HusKy]

3 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

The space that a portable system lived in is now being taken over by crap like PS Now.
 

 

This pretty much.

With recent push of Remote Play to iOS, it looks like Sony's next portable actually won't be a "device" at all, it will be their cloud gaming service - PS Now.

[Undead Wolf]

So they went from "handheld consoles are no longer viable" to "we're no longer interested in making making them" when Switch proved them wrong. Sony failed the Vita, not the other way around. Even if they did make another handheld, it wouldn't have the same charm as Vita anyway. Being a handheld full of niche Japanese games is what made it so great. Something like the Vita could never happen with the new Americanized Sony, hell bent on censorship.

 

Since the OP decided to post a tweet by a certain publisher, I suppose the silver lining of Vita support dying and no successor is that they won't be able to sell as many trophy list stacks in the future, hopefully hurting that company's bottom line. 

[EcoShifter]

All things considered it clearly makes sense, and it's fine. (The latter:) Between backlogs that a lot of us have (across various systems at that) and don't want to get any bigger, next generation on the horizon, games being developed for now gen and next gen, and the PSP emulation on the Vita, it still has a fairly satisfying library of games, including multi-plat (e.g., Shantae, Borderlands, Gravity Rush, "RPGs", etc) ones on the go.

 

32 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

I don't think that they have enough mascots, devs, or money to provide 1st party support for 3 gaming devices.

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by EcoShifter

[Arcesius]

It absolutely makes sense from their perspective. They don't need to spend any money on making hardware, but instead can just sell PS Now subscriptions. Once they enable game streaming on tablets / phones / laptops they can use any user's device as the "portable console" without spending a dime on making them. 

 

It's not only Sony... Xbox is doing the same thing, as is Google, and I'm really ok with it. Never had a Vita though.  

Edited December 5, 2019 by Arcesius

[xh117]

I wish they made a Vita revision at least with L2 R2 triggers and higher specs before giving up.

[sealightbreeze]

Also, hand held are not as popular anymore. They used to be seen everywhere. I hardly see anyone using one now a days.

[Solid-Fisch]

That's good news.

[Squirlruler]

That's fine. Just make a cable to connect my phone to a controller and play through an app.

[Crispy_Oglop]

The reasoning makes total sense. Also as much as I would love a new Sony handheld - I think most people would use it to play a videogame while taking an extended poop nowadays. The money they would expend on developing a product based in a market that is already cornered by Nintendo and Mobile Gaming can be used far better in other avenues of tech around their console.

 

On a side note, that IGN Now format is like a low grade version of what the Inside Gaming crew have been doing better for a long long time. 

Edited December 5, 2019 by Crispy_Oglop

[LucianaRosethorn]

That's a shame but everyone already guessed they wouldn't try again. I love my Vita, it's one of my favourite consoles and I have so many more games I need to buy for it. Don't worry little guy, I won't kill you like the first! 

[Dreakon13]

I think they're probably perfectly happy with how the standard Playstation console line has done, without trying to get into the handheld market again.  I get fans don't want to see their brand settling or whatever (kinda like fans scoffing at Microsoft downplaying VR), especially if they liked the Vita... but it makes sense.  As long as they make the right decisions when it comes to rolling out and maintaining the PS5.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Dreakon13

[DarkSoleride]

#VitaIsland will keep it alive, it truly is a shame. This is my favourite console of all time second being the PS2. Sony should have not used it as a mascot for promoting their proprietary storage, the PSP got away with it since Sony cameras were so popular back in the 90s and early 2000s. When Sony did this again with the PS Vita it was bound to fail.

 

Then no Sony support, developer support started to dwindle and it went down hill from there. I however have a massive backlog of Vita games and it will be keeping me going for years to come.

PlayStation 5 will be interesting though i guess there is clearly a drive for portable gaming but i guess Sony has just given up perusing it 

[Caju_94]

It's a shame, yet predictable... The PSP was a huge success even though I only got one 2/3 years ago, and I really love playing in my Vita (still use it a lot!), but I agree that the Vita is for a smaller and more specific audience, since it doesn't have so many popular and mainstream games, but a nice console if you are looking for games made in Japan (RPGs and stuff like that).

 

Nintendo is dominating the portable market IMO.

[dermarx]

No big surprise, the Vita is dead since 2-3 years now. And there are fewer game releases on the PS Vita (which also get an release on PS4) and far too less exclusives for the Vita. Shamefully, I like the Vita but Sony put not that much effort in the Vita it has deserved.

[Edunstar84]

Could they at least give us some decent PS Vita sales now and again? 

[Katt]

This streaming nonsense needs to end like yesterday. It's not good and it's killing the dream of portable gaming. I mean, the REAL portable gaming without internet connection.

[DaivRules]

With many self-identified "gamers" not seeing a difference between mobile phone gaming and a dedicated handheld like a Vita, that's a steep hill to climb to convince those people there is a difference.

 

As long as Remote Play continues to be supported for PS4 titles, I'm getting plenty of use for my Vita. Fingers crossed they keep the Remote Play requirement for PS5 titles.

[Sora9427]

I mean, it was pretty obvious, sadly nowdays the "new generations" play all Phone games they'll never buy a handheld console...

 

Yeah sure the switch, i wonder how actually many people use it more around than docked  (Without considering how awful some games run there)

 

Anyway a sad news, i love Vita and Loved my PSP back years ago, maybe in the future things will change but i doubt it with all those stupid phones and games for them around nowadays....

 

PS: Ratalaika are sad? Why? Because maybe their games are so terribly superficial that on Vita sold because of Easy plats but on the Phone nobody will get them?  

Edited December 5, 2019 by Sora9427

[SnowxSakura]

2 hours ago, sealightbreeze said:

Also, hand held are not as popular anymore. They used to be seen everywhere. I hardly see anyone using one now a days.

41 million Nintendo switch sales worldwide says otherwise.

 

I see people with them everywhere in public 

[sealightbreeze]

7 minutes ago, SnowxSakura said:

41 million Nintendo switch sales worldwide says otherwise.

 

I see people with them everywhere in public 

That's a console that's portable not an actual hand held. Processor units are different