You’d be forgiven for thinking, if you watched today’s Sony Gamescom conference, that Sony has already given up on the PlayStation Vita. Sony’s 80-minute presser was all PS4, without much mention of its underappreciated handheld. In fact, the Vita even lost an exclusive — Tearaway — giving gamers one less reason to buy an expensive new portable system.
It’s too bad, really. I love my Vita — in fact, Danganronpa and Danganronpa 2 might be my favourite games of 2014 so far — and I wish it had more support.
Thanks a lot Sony pic.twitter.com/znrO5hFVZA
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) August 12, 2014
My two favorite games of 2014 are both on Vita (Danganronpa 1/2) so yeah it’d be lovely if Sony would remember that the thing existed
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) August 12, 2014
Clearly I’m not the only one. Tons of reporters and developers took to Twitter this afternoon with plenty of jokes and critiques of how Sony has neglected their handheld system:
I thought I was told that we were going to announce “nine” new Vita games at Gamescom. Turns out they were saying “nein” #PlayStationGC
— CEO Kaz Hirai (@KazHiraiCEO) August 12, 2014
If Sony came out and said the VITA was actually just a shared hallucination a bunch of us have been having for the last 3 years, I’d buy it.
— A Colossal Bummer (@alex_navarro) August 12, 2014
The Shocking Truth that Sony Doesn’t Want You to Know: The Vita is awesome.
— Robert Boyd (@werezompire) August 12, 2014
Sony can almost hear the sound of a beating heart, imagines a floorboard thrumming insistently, as if the Vita were still alive underneath
— Leigh Alexander (@leighalexander) August 12, 2014
Y’all expected Vita news? Why? Sony set a precedent of not talking about the system. Move on.
— Neal Ronaghan (@nron10) August 12, 2014
Great show Sony. So many crazy games. Lots of great devs. Bang on. (No vita makes me sad though…)
— Nathan Vella (@Capy_Nathan) August 12, 2014
Kinect/Vita is done. Microsoft/Sony’s little experiment with motion controls/portable systems is over.
— Joe Fourhman (@fourhman) August 12, 2014
The criticism towards Sony over its refusal to cover Vita in its conferences is pretty justified. Is Sony ashamed of it? Embarrassed?
— Pete Skerritt (@PeteSkerritt) August 12, 2014
Have all the stability updates you want Sony, but you can’t bring the Vita back from the dead with a stability update.
— Not Reggie Fils-Aime (@Reggie_NOA) August 12, 2014
That Sony press conference convinced me that I need to buy a Vita right now…because Sony may not be selling them for much longer.
— Darth Clark (@GI_Darth) August 12, 2014
Is the Vita canceled?
— Alexa Ray Corriea (@AlexaRayC) August 12, 2014
So if Microsoft is abandoning Kinect, is Playstation abandoning Vita?
— Andrea Rene (@andrearene) August 12, 2014
I’ll give you the €11 in my pocket if you’ll talk about PS Vita, Sony. Please
— Dale North (@DaleNorth) August 12, 2014
It’s worth noting that Vita actually LOST exclusives today, however. Nothing was announced for the handheld of consequence. Very sad.
— Colin Moriarty (@notaxation) August 12, 2014
There are threads on GAF and Reddit wondering why the Vita was a no-show. One particularly nasty Reddit thread is full of anger and frustration from Vita fans who feel like they have been abandoned.
This comes just two months after the embarrassing Final Fantasy Type-0 gaffe in which Sony higher-ups declared that Square’s RPG was coming to Vita, calling it a “megaton”, only to take back the announcement just a few minutes later. People were not pleased.
Really, if Sony isn’t going to support the Vita with big new games, they could at least bolster the library of PS1 classics. And maybe add some PS2 games up in there. Please?
Comments
36 responses to “People Want To Know Why Sony Forgot About The Vita”
RIP Vita, we hardly knew ye.
Shine on you crazy handlheld
I’d quite like people to make stuff for it but that requires people to buy it which requires people to make stuff for it…
Also known as the Wii U effect
Except nintendo is still pushing, still making games.
I’m right there with the disappointed people. I bought a Vita with hopes that it would finally get some support during the PS4 era. I’ve been very disappointed
I bought mine thinking the ps1 classics would be enough to make up for the lack of real games, problem is that the controls without an r2 and l2 make some psone games terrible. Plus games that showed as available in Australia on my ps account weren’t actually available when I tried to purchase them. It’s a great piece of technology but aside from two or three games I liked everything else I’ve played has been boring or a port I’ve already played.
PS4 out sold Vita in 9 months.
*Looks at list of japan only games being reported on siliconera, finds a lot of them are going to be ported to the vita, a certain percent of them fanservice games* the fact is, to my frustration of being a 3ds owner, is that many companies in japan are making, porting & localising their games for the vita. To all you vita fans who feel they are being short changed, look at the AMOUNT of games being made for it from japan, I mean by the looks of the amount of new japanese vita only games coming up, you will have some good ones coming. I mean its the western game industry that fail to appreciate it. Man to all you whiners who believe it is going the way of the dreamcast, remember that it is the japanese fans who help to prop it up against the competition that is the 3ds. man will you a take some stress relief
Actually I find it frustrating that more then half the news games announced for Vita now days are weird and pervy japanese rpgs. 😛
Just as long as they keep bringing Indies and ports to the Vita, I’ll be happy for a long long time.
I really think they they shot themselves in the feet with how horribly priced the memory cards are. I would buy more games if I didn’t have to shell out so much cash on a card.
This and only this.
Well, I am pissed that 2K can port Bioshock to the bloody Iphone but they couldn’t sort the promised Bioshock game out with Sony…
I bought a Vita amazed by its potential, just look at how beautiful Uncharted Golden Abyss was and Assassins Creed Liberations while not the best in the series certainly showed the Vita off. What Vita needs is some big titles that have mass appeal, they took a step and the right direction making a cheaper smaller Vita, but they need to attract EA back, a Mirrors Edge port would be great on Vita and could make use of the back pad. A shrunk down version of battlefield or Call of Duty. That’d be great, stuff everyone knows, I know theres a lot of cool indi stuff but the mass market doesn’t have the same appreciation for them. Gran Turismo would be great but I feel as though I’ve lost hope for that 🙁
Vita already has a Call Of Duty and it is terrible. Vita suffered a lot from the fact that game developers put their B-teams on the Vita version of franchises (hence Resistance: Burning Sky, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate and every Lego game)
They do have a COD game, though (Black Ops Declassified). I had it, but ended up selling it to Gamestop. Wasn’t much to it, though; very much “shrunk down.”
I’m torn. This backlash is reminding me that I’m on the tipping point leaning towards buying one, but it’s also making me feel like I can’t count on anything else being released for it in the future.
It would be the equivalent of buying a ps3 now. You have a backlog to go through of great experiences depending on your preference in games, but once you complete all of the ones you wanted to play whats next…
Yeah. I’m just used to doing this in the opposite direction. I brought my PS3 when there was almost nothing for it confident that at the very least I’ll get a handful of games out of it (and I did). It’s just a lot easier for me to process it as it comes out than as a backlog.
I mean I look at what is on the Vita and think ‘ok, these three games are all I’m interested in and they justify the purchase’, but if I buy the first game and it’s not what I thought it would be suddenly I’ve made a mistake buying a Vita. It doesn’t help that I’m looking primarily at RPGs and Japanese games. When it comes to games aimed at Japanese audiences I tend to either love them or hate them and it’s really hard to tell just by looking them up on YouTube or reading reviews.
That said I doubt the games are going to dry up, I’d just hate to buy one and have Sony replace it next month.
I would say if you have disposable income and money isn’t tight then roll the rice and get one. I’m assuming that you have PS+ which should mean you have a ton of vita games in your download history. Worst case scenario you play the games you have cued like Gravity Rush, Uncharted, Wipeout 2048, Dragons Crown, Muramasa Rebirth and all the ones that have been on PS+ and if you don’t enjoy them sell it and you lose out maybe $50 after you sell it.
What I enjoy about my vita is the accessibility of it. When I’m playing a nice JRPG I’m caught up in I can sit on the couch while the GF is watching True Blood and still chill with her. I can play for like 30 minutes in the bed when i can’t get to sleep. I can play while my roomate is watching tv without having to steal the TV away from her etc etc. In my opinion it is a good device that some stupid miscues like marketing and memory cards that have caused the vitas current dilemma but it is still a good device and people who own it are usually happy with it.
FWIW even if Sony are being dumb with it, third parties seem to be doing alright on the system and right now in Japan, Vita is outselling PS4 around 3:1, so it’s not like the games are all going to dry up. There’s a massive rush of new titles starting this month, I think basically every week from now until some time in November there’s something I’m looking at buying (though I have a US account so PAL releases might be less optimally spread out)
I’m pumped for Danganronpa 2, Hatsune Miku PDF 2nd, Minecraft, Risk of Rain – and most of all, The Binding of Isaac Rebirth. No complaints at all.
I’m excited for those. Akiba’s Trip just came out today, along with Hohokum and Disgaea 4. Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment next week. Neptunia Re;birth 1 the week after, then Danganronpa 2 first week of September, Natural Doctrine and Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus all in that month. Tales of Hearts and Miku in November.
There’s a ton of stuff that I’d definitely pick up that hasn’t been announced for localization yet too. God Eater 2 is getting less likely, but NISA has a few they’ve confirmed but not yet dated. Sony has yet to date Oreshika and Freedom Wars. That Dengeki Bunko fighting game seems pretty unlikely but I’d grab it if it happened. Phantasy Star Nova would also be a must-buy if Sega bothered to bring it over. There’s the Vita ports of Ar noSurge and the ‘offline’ Ciel noSurge that Koei have sort of kind of expressed the possibility of doing, and they’ll very likely bring over the Vita ports of Atelier Ayesha + Escha & Logy (and presumably Shallie once it gets ported) since the Arland games did well for them. Then there’s a few interesting looking dungeon crawlers that seem pretty likely as well since Demon Gaze apparently sold well above what NISA expected – really hoping we get Dungeon Travelers. Probably others I’m forgetting as well. Kind of wish I was able to read Japanese a lot better so I could import the vita ports of the Trails games as well.
Ignore the standard and ever predictable internet outrage. Read up on what’s out, what’s coming out, and decide for yourself. Also factor in features like remote play, if you have a PS4.
Well I had a great time with my Vita. Played what is now my favorite RPG series Persona, Enjoyed a lot of titles via PS+ and the slew of weird Japanese titles. I couldn’t even tell you roughly how many hours i spent playing on it.
The frustrating thing is that this year has had a ton of really good releases for the Vita and a fair number more in the pipeline. Sony even has two fairly high-profile games, Freedom Wars and Oreshika, which are announced for 2014 but not yet dated.
Well western companies are not even trying for Vita anymore. All the good titles we are getting are just english translated games. Not that I am unhappy, I am actually bloody happy it became the JRPG console for western gamers. If only they keep it up and keep pumping the english translations.
Seriously, Sony even has freaking Freedom Wars and Oreshika coming out, both of which look fantastic, but they refuse to show even a second of them…
WHY ARE YOU NOT ADVERTISING YOUR FIRST PARTY GAMES?!?!
I love my vita, but thats because i’m a fan of niche japanese games which is the only thing holding the Vita up… Sony seriously needs to step its game up, especially with the PS TV coming out (which i find hilarious that they renamed it from the Vita TV, says a lot about what they think of the vita)…
The Vita is a great system. I played one of the prototypes at TGS years back and was instantly impressed with it.
I also knew I wouldn’t buy one in the next 5 years because this is what Sony do to handhelds:
1. Make a cool piece of tech
2. Cripple it with one really stupid design decision that makes everyone stare at them with this face – http://bit.ly/Y3oMmf
3. Price it way out of the market
4. Stop supporting it almost entirely
5. Somehow magically have a great system with fantastic games 6 years later, despite their best efforts to throw money into a pit and burn it
Doesn’t ‘Vita’ mean life? I now understand why they called it the Vita Slim.
Sony, all you are doing is showing what a sham E3 2013 was – in reality, you are no more on the customers’ side than any other corporation. I’m embarrassed I believed the hype.
If you couldn’t tell the vita would fail from the beginning, you only have yourself to blame.
Day 1 Vita owner, loved Unchartered, played it so hard!
Waited for the next chapter…..nothing.
To those people saying that there are a lot of Japanese local games in Japan not being sold in the West, ok, let me share this with you. Those Japanese games, are all mainly the same genre JRPG games. I don’t wanna play a bunch of games with little girls dressed like maids, you find too many of those games now in the PSVita in Japan.
I want some mature games with real gameplay. Not games with girls working in a strip club and sexually encountering a barmaid and crap. REAL GAMES please!……REAL!
Forget it or not, I am still looking forward to Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd coming over. Since I’m moving on from the PS3 to PS4, I’ll be glad to play it on my Vita.
Also, Cytus is one of the most fun games I’ve played on it, and I love the soundtrack.
I still have a huge backlog on the Vita that could last me another year at least, and I know there are plenty of games they are announced as Vita/PS4 in the next 12 mths also.
That being said, taking 5-10mins out of a schedule to roll a sizzle reel of the upcoming games for the next 12mths would have been nice.
Sony need to bundle the system with Minecraft… if that fails to shift units consistently ongoing, then you can well and truly pack it up.
I picked mine up for $150 from eBay a while back, worth every cent! I’m still working my way through the PS+ backlog I have and there are some cool games coming soon I’m interested in (Counter Spy, Hohokum, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F 2nd, Freedom Wars). Also, Remote Play! I can’t wait until I get a PS4 and play via remote play games like Trials and Resogun around the house.
Great physical device but…….
Games are a yawnfest, shrunk down C grade knockoffs of A grade games, JRPG’s, cross platform indie games, botched streaming off of a ps4 and maybe 2 or 3 worthwhile games.
Seems to try to accomplish too much in my eyes but generally fails at everything. Could have been amazing but I’d rather just stick with the Ipad or 3DS.