Surprise! Sony Isn't Working on First-Party Titles for PS Vita

I'll give vita one more year before its discontinued and not manufactured anymore.

@WebHead I highly doubt it, I reckon Sony will keep making them while leaving it flying solo for as long as developers continue to make niche/indie titles for it. I think it will be very similar to the PSP situation really, that continued to be manufactured until December 2014 on PAL territories. Handhelds are typically much more resilient than home consoles even after first party support is dropped.

I think they have given up on the Vita prematurely - especially since they said last month that they have no plans for a new handheld console. It means that there'll be a space for the Vita to fill right through until the end of the PS4's lifespan, which would be around 2020. I think if they put a bit more effort into the Vita, they could see slow and steady sales until then. Also weird how they released the slim version, and dropped all other support straight away!

that angers me and I really feel sorry for it - I bought a Vita a few months ago and it is by far the console I play most on - and I own PS4, One and WiiU
So many great games and the Vita itself is exceptionally great in design, screen and comfort.
I will be buying games on sale no matter what, till I have everything I am interested in, and I also use it for off screen play with the PS4, also have PSTV and really love the connection between those three
Shame on you Sony! Im disappointed

With PlayStation Now working on Vita I don't see it dying for a few years yet. Though most PS3 titles work some don't work as well as one would like. Unfortunately thats not going to change anytime soon due to the lack of L2/R2 buttons. Once Sony add PS1 & PS2 games to the service the Vita may find itself getting alot more love.

@consolfreak1982 Im doing the same. I purchase as many games as possible for it as some are becoming harder to find. I reckon in a year or two Vita games will be really hard to find. Grab those classics while you can I say.

Well to any actual Vita owner this isn't surprising or new, been this was since late 2013 basically.

For the Players!

Didn't they say this 6 months ago?

Wish they'd quit rubbing it in, I get it. I'll keep mine forever and eventually get all the greatest games downloaded to it. Sigh it had such potential.

I wish one of Sony's studios were working on just a single AAA Vita game. Just one that's all I ask.

I've not bought a game since Killzone & Tearaway in late 2013 (other than indie stuff) and it's a sad state of affairs.

Sony really can't be bothered with it but at the same time can't kill it off in fear of pi**ing us owners off who invested in it in the first place. This is poor Sony, very poor.

@chiptoon lol! Maybe the Vita slogan should just be "not for the players!" heh

I love my Vita, still. It's sad Sony gave up on it so quickly.

@shogunrok Great article.

No new games, not even this news is new.

So happy of not owning one.

Love my Vita perfect for all the indies in ps+ & the few ps1 classics I've played on it. If anything there should be more ps1 games and the Vita should also support PS2 games as well - love to play Bully or Dark Cloud when I'm out and about

I can't say I'm surprised but I am disappointed. I have a psvita and I feel like it wasn't used to it's full potential. Or it was and that was the problem. Not enough "decent" games on it unfortunately. They were all clunky and graphics were always terrible. I got to play a few great indie titles and old school survival horror games like resident evil and silent hill, I also played the two seasons of telltales walking dead, but that is pretty much all I enjoyed. Its a shame to be written off with perhaps a bit of potential to improve but as they say, it's for the players!

The Vita is a great console, and could easily fill in a nice niche if it was marketed properly as it's own system, not as an accessory to the PS4. As long as there's more games coming from other developers, i'm not too bothered overall. I won't be buying a next gen Sony handheld (if it ever appears).

@shogunrok
"Essentially, Ito confirms that there are no first=party Vita games in production."
Your 3rd paragraph seems to have an unneeded equal sign. Perhaps you hit something other than backspace?

Sony, only for the players when it is a PS4.

The first time I've ever been genuinely p*ssed off at Sony. They promised so much with the Vita, and then completely failed to deliver.

I bought mine on the premise/promise that it would offer full console-quality games on a hand-held device, and for a while it looked good, with titles like Golden Abyss, Killzone Mercenary etc. But after their announcement of no more AAA titles, my use has nosedived. There are a few indie games I play occasionally, but the constant flood of "retro" styled games just isn't for me, and I don't do JRPGs... so there's been nothing for me for a while, other than what I've already got, and a bit of Remote Play.

I'd just like to point out something. When the 3DS was failing initially, Nintendo's response was the slash the price, give early adopters 20 free games, and they got to work on producing a number of high-quality first-party exclusives.
When the Vita was failing initially, Sony's response was to stop making games for it and effectively give up on it as they began removing features.
What sucks is if Sony had done what Nintendo did, the Vita would probably be selling better.

See this pisses me off. NO games? Not even smaller ones?

You don't make hardware unless you're willing to back it up. You don't make a platform then pull out and leave the consumer stranded with a $250 paperweight.

Grrr this makes me mad. Like really? All that PS4 success, they couldn't even make a few smaller games for the people who DO own a Vita?

It sounds like doom for the Vita was planned a long time ago. You can't tell me the Sony PlayStation crew don't know how to sell it. They consciously refused to. Instead of first party titles, how about ports of major games like The Last Of Us and Resident Evils 4, 5, & 6? For me, a port is a new game b/c Vita is my first and only Playstation console. I paid $55 for an import of Resident Evil Revelations 2 and I have no issues with the framerate thanks to my humble upbringing on Nintendo games.

Even though I love my OOT 3DS I admit that I have thought about buying a Vita. I want to get one so I can play my PSN games on the go. Mainly my RPGs.

Well the japanese titles are what I like so... Okay?!

@JaxonH
I agree. At this point I'm not expecting a 'blockbuster' portable game, but there should be something. The Vita has been a mess from the beginning. Great piece of hardware, I don't regret buying one because I have a ton of games for it, but Sony f'ed up. The company has ZERO clue of the portable market and I hope it never attempts another one. Hell, I think VR is also an extremely bad idea. Sony should stick to the home console market, where it's always been successful, and just provide great games for PS4. But that would make too much sense. Lets spend millions of dollars making a VR product that's probably going to flop worse than Vita and cost the company even more.

@ollietaro
I can tolerate minor framerate issues but I'm annoyed I spent $30 for Revelations 2 on Vita. Horrendous waste of $30 on my part, live and learn I guess, even at 32 years old. I wouldn't want Sony porting anything over like The Last of Us because if they can't even get Revelations 2 running well, forget about technically superior games. I wouldn't mind maybe seeing some more PS2 stuff ported over. They've already a few of those, but I don't think they did the DMC collection. I'd love to have 1 and 3 on the go.

I thought we knew about this for a long time now... or at least, it was assumed.

@Spyke
The difference is Nintendo actually has money, Sony has been in financial trouble for a while. There's things it could've done for Vita, but it wasn't in a position to be dropping the price $70 or more. Of course, as I put in my other comment, I think it was a bad idea from the start. Sony knew before the Vita came out that it wasn't in the greatest position financially, at that point the company needs to be smart. But dumb decisions, like releasing a product in a market it doesn't understand at all is, is why Sony is in the position it's in. As little interest as I have in virtual reality I'm really hoping PS VR isn't the failure I'm expecting it because it could seriously damage Sony and ruin all the good its done with PS4 to this point. It just seems like another really stupid idea by a corporation that has a laundry list of stupid ideas over the last decade but we'll see.

@Gamer83
Given how big Sony is I keep forgetting that they've been in financial trouble. And I have to agree with you, Sony really doesn't seem to understand the handheld market very well. They haven't for awhile.

I find Sony really disappointed me with the Vita. It's such a great machine, but since it wasn't an instant success, they gave up on it! Sony could learn from Nintendo and it's 3DS, it started off horribly, but they fixed it, and now it's selling very well.

I keep wanting to buy a Vita and support the handheld, cause I have played them alot, and really enjoy the system, but Sony not even supporting the system with their own games is just pathetic. -_-

@Spyke
Yeah. I think the idea of 'home console games on the go' is nice but that's not what's going to sell a portable system. The marketing also wasn't there. I didn't think PSP was marketed perfectly either, but Sony did a much better job getting the word out about that machine. It also was priced competitively and had really strong third party support. Two big GTA games certainly helped.

@Gamer83
The major problem I'm seeing with the Vita is the only real reason to get one is for the indie games. And unfortunately, I don't know a single person who buys a console because of its indie games aside from myself.

@Gamer83 I think "home console games on the go" wou;d have sold the Vita very well; it's the reason I and many early adopters actually bought one.

The problem was that they didn't get enough of that type of game out quickly enough, and for whatever reason they didn't really get the third-party support needed, so sales stalled. The Vita didn't start out badly at all really...

http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/04/ps-vita-sales-vs-psp-3ds-ds/

...but I feel a lack of the promised 'full console games' clipped its wings. There are plenty of people like myself who would prefer what was promised for Vita as opposed to Nintendo's more 'bite sized' approach to mobile gaming, but it was never backed up after an initial handful of titles.

I think the Vita is an amazing, powerful system, which is being utterly wasted on the kind of drivel (just my personal opinion) which is being released on the PSN each week. When I think of the quality of something like Golden Abyss, to see the system reduced to countless 'retro' 8-bit games makes me genuinely shake my head at Sony for being so eager to throw that potential away.

And with perfect timing...Trails in the sky second chapter is actually getting released next week! I am so happy !

Wasn't it like this with the PSP? I had one, and it seemed like the first 2 years had games coming out, but then it was just one game here and there...then games became scarce. Then the PSP GO came out...people not wanting a pure-download-only system, and that flopped...then came VITA. I had one for a few years before getting tired of seeing just PS3 games arriving on it and a few indies, instead of brand new games for it. I honestly hope Sony doesn't make another handheld...just leave the handheld world to Nintendo...Atari and Sega learned this as both of those companies had 2 handhelds come out that couldn't really compete (even though the Game Gear had a pretty good following). Heck, I don't even see Vita games out in stores, and Gamestop keeps them by their back doors (which are always opened and covering them).

It's a shame. I loved the VITA and thought it was a clever device, it's just a shame that it didn't take off over here in the US. The Vita kind of reminds me of the Wii U right now. I still love my PSP, and still have it to play, but I seriously hope Sony doesn't try another handheld for a while, and I really hope that the VR doesn't break them either (but with a high price, it probably will). I guess VITA will be in a grave with Wonderbook, Move and Playstation TV...right next to Sony VAIO computers.

Wow? Couldn't come up with a real article to write eh. These writers need to stop trying to convince people that the Vita is dead. Oh wait, you were just re reporting unneeded info. Also stop using the 1st party title support crap as well. Games don't have to be 1st party to be great and as a writer you know that because you guys usually can't stop talking about some great no name game that's out or coming . There are more great games for the Vita than the 3ds and more coming and the variety is staggering. Maybe if this article focused on the actual benefits of the Vita and it's huge growing game selection it would be worth reading.

Why do u want to bring up old news? What's the point and your purpose?

I've been seriously considering to sell my Vita, and I guess it is time. I'd rather play games on my PS4, Wii U, and 3DS.

Disappointed 😞 but the hundreds of games available including Wipeout 2048, geometry wars 3 and every final fantasy upto 10 its a nice distraction. I always end up on ridge racer 4 though so maybe I'm part of the problem.

Not sure why anyone would have been surprised by this. As sad as it is, it's been a given for quite a while now. I still play mine on the daily as it as loads of great Japanese titles on it that have kept me quite busy. I really wasn't a big fan of the first party titles for the system anyway. If Sony were to continue to support the system with updates and third parties continue to publish to the system I'll be fine with it. It's sad though, the Vita had a lot of potential but it seems Sony was determined to kill it from the get go.

@Gamer83 Does Revelations 2 not even run well with the updates? I was planning on getting it this weekend.

I love my Vita and I play it almost every day. But Sony has completely mistreated it. Here in North America, they let stock run out of many stores in the early spring of 2014 where it was nearly impossible to find to buy. Then the launch of the Slim was so quiet and without fanfare that no one even knew it was out. They stopped making quality first party games for it over a year ago. The prices of the memory cards was and are still outrageous. It truly is a shame.

That being said, I still play my Vita every day. There are plenty of outstanding games on it. It just completely sucks that it has a year of decent support before it all went to crap. It has so much untapped potential.

sigh I think this one actually was Sony's fault.

Nintendo 3DS sales weren't great in the beginning, either, due to the high price and the lack of games. But instead of giving up on it, Nintendo made an aggressive price cut and STARTED MAKING GAMES for it. Now look at it, the family is routinely outselling every other console week after week in all territories. I just don't understand Sony's logic or endgame with the Vita, and I hope their odd decision making doesn't prevent them from making an awesome successor (because I'd love to someday play PS3 classics on the go).

@ericthecheese
To be honest, I haven't played it since the first two weeks it was out but even after the first update which was supposed to fix things, it wasn't running well. The PS4 version actually struggled too, initially but they got that version patched up right away. The game, while a budget release, was still clearly made to run on home consoles not handhelds. I'd say if you're interested in Revelations 2 and have an PS4 or Xbox One, get it there instead.

I think Sony is stupid to quit supporting it. Even when they did support it, there was not one single "AAA" game that didn't have one or more tragic flaws. Every great game had huge issues. They never really tried. And there's no reason they can't revive the Vita. Most people don't even know what a Vita is! They could practically re-release it with heavy advertisement and people would actually think it was a new system. Sony is either lazy or just out of touch. Or both. Probably both.