Sony Officially Ends Production of PS Vita (polygon.com)

Sony has officially ended production of its PS Vita games console. The handheld console has been gradually phased out over the past few years -- and this weekend Sony announced it would be discontinuing the Vita's final two models. Polygon reports: Sony stopped regularly publicizing individual platform sales in its investor reports in 2013, so there are no official numbers for how the PS Vita sold over its seven-year lifespan. Estimates by third parties have placed it somewhere in the range of 10-15 million units.

Sony itself stopped making games for the Vita in 2015, and in 2018 ended the production of physical media games for the device. February was also the last month that the PlayStation Plus subscription service gave out games for the platform. The original PlayStation Vita (PCH-1000) launched in Japan on Dec. 17, 2011, and in North America on Feb. 15, 2012. A revised slimline model (PCH-2000) followed in 2013 and 2014.

Comments

Lots of negativity in this thread

[WolfgangVL]

So I'll gush a little about my Vita.

I bought the Vita to replace the aged but thoroughly hacked PSP that had been my only entertainment for a year in Afghanistan. Soon, the exploits had been found, a damn near perfect PSP emulator was rigged up and sideloaded, and the Vita became a complete replacement for the earlier device.

Everybody loves the Nintendo handhelds, and they are great- but the PSP and the Vita are the best of their generation IMO. Both systems seem to be designed for people with much smaller hands than me, but with a proper grip, the controls are smooth and perfect. As close to a real controller as a handheld can get. I can't say that for any of the other handhelds.

The device is just capable. Stream your PC games from our desktop system upstairs? No Problem. Remote control your PS4 from your front porch? Too easy. Enjoy a nice movie on the sexy OLED screen? Why not.

Then there is the "Hacking" scene. It's quite the rabbit hole. It's hard to keep all of the exploit methods and firmware versions straight for the Vita, but it has the pretty neat payoff of blowing the system wide opened. This enabled the use of microSD cards instead of the low-capacity expensive Sony card, and suddenly you can carry pretty much the entire playstation library around in your pocket. It's a shame though, as it's the same for the Vita library, and I'm certain it's the piracy this enables that killed the system in the long run. It really is a tragedy.

I've built the Pigrrl handheld and loaded it up. I was sure that would be the one to take my Vitas place. It was a fun build, but at the end of the day, compared to the Vita, the screen is kinda shitty, the controls are clicky, and the interface gets harder to use the more games you put on it, it's less comfortable, and it just cant do as much.

I'm fairy certain the Vita represents the last of the really great standalone offline portable consoles.