That would be a shame, but I think I got my money’s worth out of mine. Heck, Octodad will be out for it next week.
As a Vita owner, let me know when they drop the ridiculous memory card prices. I could really use a 64gb card.
Whether Sony is liquidating Vita’s or not they are certainly not fully supporting the platform anymore and basically letting it die a slow death. The last big release for Vita that I was excited about was Killzone: Mercenary and that released back in September 2013. I am glad that so many indie devs have been porting their games to the Vita recently since it gives me another platform to play them on, and a portable one at that. However, I typically already own all of the indie games on my PC so I am not getting unique experiences.
The Vita was a fantastic platform (the best portable I have ever owned), but I think it will be Sony’s last dedicated handheld system which won’t surprise anyone.
-Todd
When the Vita gets cheap, I will be delighted to own one, given the library of cool games that I’ve picked up over the last year on PS+.
Hey, you guys wanna hear my impression of someone who doesn’t own a Vita?
“The Vita’s a slick piece of hardware, but it’s too bad there aren’t any good games for it.”
-Tom
Oh, I have a good one too!
“A what?”
They got a ton of shit for putting big “console style” games on the Vita and as soon as they stopped people started complaining that they weren’t supporting the platform with enough big games.
Vita will go down as a tragedy greater than failures of Dreamcast or Gamecube. All Sony did was build the best dedicated portable gaming device ever made and people never stopped looking for reason to hate it.
Not for me! They could stop supporting the Vita right now and I’d still have a fantastic piece of hardware with an excellent assortment of great games.
-Tom
I do think that the rise in mobile phone gaming killed them too, because (while I did eventually get a vita) it is a little harder to take the leap to buy a ‘second’ mobile gaming device when you already have a ‘first’ one with you phone. It took me a while to do and I was already dying to play Disgaea 3&4 and The Show.
It didn’t help that they were actively competing against themselves with their game phone thing for a while. That was my initial reason for delaying, I thought they were going to 100% kill the vita in exchange for their stupid phone thing. And by the time that sorted itself I had a smartphone that I could game on. So the vita because a second console which is always harder to justify doing.
I just ran into that very thing on facebook, and when confronted, they said “But they’re not all like Killzone or Uncharted…”
I don’t think the future of the Vita will be portable versions of AAA games, distributed on physical media. Sony’s vision appears to be digital distribution of smaller games, with an emphasis on legacy and cross-platform games within the Playstation family. And I’m 100% OK with that. I prefer my ‘big’ games on the TV or PC screen and my handheld with lots of smaller, less time-intensive games.
This is a common enough sentiment that you may be right, but to me it’s a bizarre one. I guess technically it is possible to play games on a smartphone but the experience of doing so isn’t remotely competitive with a dedicated handheld and I have zero desire to ever do it.
Personally I didn’t mind the “console style” games (for lack of a better term) but I did mind all the ports. Killzone, Uncharted, Unit 13 just to name a few? Cool. Ports from the big screen that need to be gimped to fit the system’s specs, or indie ports of games I’ve already got at least one copy of on PC (and years later to boot)? Pass.
I’d be sad if they officially pulled the plug but this is how I feel. If this is a full platform axing (which PSTV fire sales seem to point towards) I hope they remove the whitelist from the PSTV. Though it wouldn’t surprise me to see them rework the PSTV into a cutdown version of what it is now and make it a $50 full-fledged streaming platform along the lines of the Steam Link.
Sony’s changing strategy certainly makes sense for those of us who already own a Vita. I get a steady stream of small indie games (ignoring the fact that I already own them on PC, PS3, or iOS devices). However this strategy is not bringing new customers in. So I stand by my statement. They haven’t pulled the plug yet and they are happy to have indie devs port their PC games over in the meantime as a form of life support, but Sony isn’t really supporting the device like they used to.
Personally I am having a difficult time fitting the Vita into my limited gaming time. If I am home I prefer to play on my enthusiast PC if I am traveling, well I have my phone. That says more about me and my extremely limited gaming time though. I am keeping and treasuring my Vita since their are some unique experiences that I want to enjoy on it and there have been times in the past where I used it extensively. Hell, Killzone: Mercenary was the best FPS experience I have had outside of the PC KB+M world!
-Todd
I both agree with you and entirely disagree! I have no interest in playing most of the vita games I play on my phone. But, there is a different set of games that are great on my phone that wouldn’t work on the vita. My phone has an internet connection so I can play all the fun asynch multiplayer games on it, toss in the occasional Iron Clad tactics or Punch Quest or whatever and there’s enough there to satisfy people enough to not feel like they need to buy a second portable console.
I’ve still got, like, half a dozen gross porny-anime-girl RPGs to play!
I have never met one of those “great on a phone, wouldn’t work on anything else” games. I am not saying that there aren’t great games that are currently exclusive to a mobile OS. And for that matter there are some games that are great and can be played a phone if you want and can tolerate the controls. But I would never play any of those games on a phone if I had another option, and certainly none of them that I have played rely on anything unique to phones. If anything, I find the touchscreen as the sole interface usually gets in the way of my enjoyment and my most enjoyed experiences on mobile are things like 80 Days that primarily involve reading and tapping links.
Also, the Vita has a touchscreen and is Internet capable (cellular, even, on some models). Just saying.
Sure, I meant it as far as my phone has an internet connection so it is easy to play those games there which makes them a substitute for more ‘serious’ vita games. And if I want to replicate that experience on the vita I have to buy a second console and a second cellular data connection. This is a huge barrier for a lot of people. That was my point in general, that the vita’s adoption has suffered a lot because smart phones act like a first mobile console for a lot of people. Even if it is a much crappier one, it has internet data built in. Going to a vita and then to a 3G vita is a large barrier.
I have a vita, I love my vita, it was still a barrier to me buying one and I know it is a huge reason I can’t get anyone else I know who doesn’t also spend over an hour a weekday on a train interested in buying a vita.
Well, again, assuming you consider it easy or pleasant to play games on a phone, whereas I have met toasters better suited to game on than the standard smartphone. That was my point. I get that there are people who feel differently. I just don’t understand it.
Well, everything that I have played on a phone I would rather play on a tablet, so I agree with you there. But a touch-only interface only favors certain genres.