It looks like production of the PlayStation Vita is finally coming to an end, less than 8 years after the portable console was first released in Japan.
Last September, Sony revealed that production of the PlayStation Vita would be ending sometime in 2019, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Sony is finally calling it a day for the Vita.
While Sony are yet to make an official announcement that this is finally the end for the PlayStation Vita, Sony’s website does now list both the PCH-200 ZA11 and PCH-2000 ZA23 models as “ending soon”. Unfortunately for the PS Vita, that’s as good as done.
Released in late 2011 in Japan and a few months later everywhere else, the PlayStation Vita never really lived up to expectations and found it hard to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, the PlayStation Portable. In fact, sales of the PSP dwarf those of the PS Vita, with an estimated 80 million PSP consoles being sold between 2004 and 2014. The PS Vita, on the other hand, has only managed to shift 16 million units.
In 2015, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida revealed that Sony no longer sees a future for its handheld consoles, in part due to the increasing popularity of the mobile gaming market as well competition from Nintendo. Since these comments were made, Nintendo has released the Switch, which has been a huge success. While great for gamers, it has pretty much killed off any hopes of a future portable console from Sony.