We have reached the end of an era and I am sorry to say that there is a tragic note to today’s news. Sony has officially declared the end to production of the PlayStation Vita in Japan – the final and largest market for the beleaguered handheld.
As we reported last month, there were only two SKUs for the Vita still in production – the Aqua Blue and Black models. The product pages for both models on Sony’s Japanese PlayStation website noted that production would soon end.
Now if you return the the Japanese PlayStation website and look at the Vita product pages you will see a notice from Sony declaring that shipments of all PlayStation Vitas have been completed. That means if you want one you may as well get it now because there won’t be any more coming to market and prices for a new system are not likely to drop anytime soon.
The PlayStation Vita launched way back in 2011 for the Japanese market and in February 2012 for the North American region. The system originally boasted some very impressive features such as proper dual analog sticks and a gorgeous OLED screen. Unfortunately, there were also a number of criticisms against the system including the ultra expensive memory cards that were all but required to play the best games on the Vita. Stiff competition from the Nintendo 3DS and the rise of mobile gaming prevented the Vita from becoming a truly mainstream system.
If you are a Vita owner and also subscribe to PlayStation Plus, be sure to collect the final games offered through the service. They will be available until March 8th. After that there will be no more free Vita games from Plus but you will still get automatic trophy syncing and cloud saves if you remain a subscriber. Your previous Plus games acquired through Plus will remain in your library so long as your subscription is active.
