Photo: Jason Schreier
Sony is ending physical production of Vita games, Kotaku has learned. Although the hardware manufacturer says digital distribution will continue, this move will mark the end of physical cards for the maligned portable game system.
Sony’s American and European branches “plan to end all Vita GameCard production by close of fiscal year 2018,” the company told developers today in a message obtained by Kotaku. The message asks that all Vita product code requests be submitted by June 28, 2018, and that final purchase orders be entered by February 15, 2019.
Sony’s 2018 fiscal year will end on March 31, 2019.
In an email to Kotaku, a Sony spokesperson confirmed that Vita card production is coming to an end.
It’s been a long, strange life for the PlayStation Vita, a system that launched here in 2012 with the slogan “console gaming on the go” but quickly lost ground to mobile and tablet gaming, along with the surge of Nintendo’s 3DS. Sony’s baffling decision to only support its expensive proprietary memory cards made the system pricier than it needed to be, and big studios quickly dropped support.
Although the system remained consistently popular in Japan, Sony’s North American and European branches all but ignored it after its first two years on the market, and it has been floundering ever since.
The Vita has become a treasure trove for JRPGs, niche Japanese titles, and indie games, although that mantle has since been seized by Nintendo’s mega-popular Switch. Now, we’re a step closer to saying goodbye.
Comments
10 responses to “Sony Ends Production Of Physical Vita Games”
I love my Vita, but I must say that I don’t own a single physical game for it.
*high five* 100% digital, PSP UMDs scarred me for life!
Digital all the way.
I actually have one…Little Big Planet which came with the purchase.
If i could get a ps4 controller to pair with the damn thing id use it more often..
Vita tv can do this.
the only pysical card game i have is Sonic all stars racing which came with the Unit for free. everything else was digital anyway. it just made more sense.
vita 2 incoming! whoohoooo!
Maligned? You mean in a “speak about (someone/something) in a spitefully critical manner”? Really?
I think, like a lot of gamers, that it’s a shame that Sony is rapidly relegating this gem of a gaming system to the scrap heap. The crazy pricing on memory cards certainly has never helped the Vita. I do own a few physical cards and quite a few digital games. Lets hope there is life in the digital world for the Vita.
I think maligned as in ‘Gaming media attempted to kill it since it launched, but they were ignored by most Vita owners’. Its really ridiculous how much of a hate on websites had for it, and were forever pronouncing it as a dead system from the get go. The lifespan of the Wii U compared to the Vita is always good for a chuckle, especially since Vita is still getting releases.
Well said.
I still play my Vita daily. Every time I read an article trying to read the Vita its last rites, I’m reminded of something Greg Miller (Kinda Funny) said during his twilight Beyond! days:
People who don’t own a Vita complain that it doesn’t have any games. People who do own a Vita complain that they need a bigger memory card to fit all their games on. [paraphrsed]
Still a lot of love in my household for the Vita.