Despite being a commercial failure in both North America and Europe, the PlayStation Vita did somewhat well in Japan. This isn’t surprising given the popularity of handheld devices, ease of public transportation, Sony name and more, though it seems Sony has accepted the systems time has come.
According to the Japanese website, both the black and blue PlayStation Vita models shipments are scheduled to end soon. The site does not include an exact date, though when Sony did this with the PlayStation 3, it was discontinued about two months later.
This really shouldn’t come as a surprise, unless you didn’t know Sony was still making the system, as they previously confirmed production will end in 2019. It would also make sense for the end to be sooner, rather than later, since this was the last month Sony is offering PlayStation Plus games for both the PlayStation 3 and Vita. We have also seen a sharp decline in sales for the system, along with most things moving towards the PlayStation 4 alone.
While this might be disappointing news for some, the system had a good run, all things considered. After getting a couple solid games, including Gravity Rush, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Soul Sacrifice and surprisingly more than people would think, it quickly became a port machine. Given the rise of Nintendo Switch, it made sense the systems days were numbered. Despite that, it still got a number of solid ports/multi-platform releases, though many of them never happened in the West.
Now that the Switch has almost entirely dominated the handheld market, there isn’t much room for the PlayStation Vita. Between the already small player base, limited titles and many games simply getting cancelled for it, it was really only a matter of time before Sony pulled the plug. So, if you’re hoping to check out one of the games or just want to see what the system had to offer, you might want to act fast before finding one becomes impossible.
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