Not dead yet

The message coming out of E3 2014 last month was that Sony’s slowly moving on from the PlayStation Vita, but Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has clarified that that’s not the case at all. As part of an interview with Game Reactor, the affable executive put to bed reports that it was abandoning the handheld – and also came up with some compelling examples to back up his point.

“The question that I was asked was, ‘Going forward, [will] the number of first-party [titles] be smaller?’, and I said, ‘Yes, the number of projects will be smaller.’ I never said, ‘We won’t make any games on the Vita,’” he clarified. “We’re continuing to make games on the Vita... we just launched a game called Freedom Wars in Japan, [which] is a big title that we’ll bring to Europe and North America as well.”

He continued: “And we’re making that JRPG... a very, very beautiful JRPG called Oreshika. And games made in Europe – Murasaki Baby is a dedicated title that got many awards at E3. And we’re continuing to make cross-platform games like Helldivers or CounterSpy. [There are] many, many games that we have in development for the Vita from first-party as well.”

It’s a compelling lineup, but it obviously lacks those Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Killzone: Mercenary-esque heavy hitters with serious commercial clout. Alas, we reckon that people are sleeping on Minecraft, which, if handled properly, could become the handheld’s so-called killer app – especially if the manufacturer comes up with an attractive hardware bundle at a reasonable price.

[source gamereactor.eu, via playstationlifestyle.net]