Sony Officially Ends PlayStation Vita First Party Support

The PlayStation Vita has a library of stunning JRPGs including Persona 4 Golden and impressive hardware specifications. Despite this, the console is a commercial failure and struggled to compete with the Nintendo 3DS. Additionally, the rise of cheap, smartphone gaming made dedicated handsets seem like an outdated notion. Although, the core games on the 3DS and Vita are of a much higher quality. On another note, Sony’s absurd proprietary memory card pricing alienated quite a large amount of customers. Given the software library’s niche audience, Sony decided to cease first party development.  Sony Computer Entertainment SVP Masayasu Ito told 4Gamers (via DualShockers):

“At the beginning the PS Vita did not resonate with age targets under 20, but now the situation is changing and the popularity with younger demographics is increasing. Minecraft: PS Vita Edition has provided a boost.”

“In addition to that, a variety of third party  games is also planned for the future, and in order to further accelerate that flow, we decided to release new colors for the PS Vita this fall.”

“Currently, first party studios have no titles in development for PS Vita. Since third parties are working very hard on PS Vita, SCE’s own strategy is to focus on PS4, which is a new platform.”

Currently, the Vita is being supported by a number of Japanese 3rd party developers, so this shouldn’t be a cause for concern. However, Sony appears to be giving up on the Vita and handheld market in general.

Do you own a PlayStation Vita?