Sony Officially Ends Production of PS Vita (polygon.com) 43
Sony has officially ended production of its PS Vita games console. The handheld console has been gradually phased out over the past few years -- and this weekend Sony announced it would be discontinuing the Vita's final two models. Polygon reports: Sony stopped regularly publicizing individual platform sales in its investor reports in 2013, so there are no official numbers for how the PS Vita sold over its seven-year lifespan. Estimates by third parties have placed it somewhere in the range of 10-15 million units.
Sony itself stopped making games for the Vita in 2015, and in 2018 ended the production of physical media games for the device. February was also the last month that the PlayStation Plus subscription service gave out games for the platform. The original PlayStation Vita (PCH-1000) launched in Japan on Dec. 17, 2011, and in North America on Feb. 15, 2012. A revised slimline model (PCH-2000) followed in 2013 and 2014.
Sony itself stopped making games for the Vita in 2015, and in 2018 ended the production of physical media games for the device. February was also the last month that the PlayStation Plus subscription service gave out games for the platform. The original PlayStation Vita (PCH-1000) launched in Japan on Dec. 17, 2011, and in North America on Feb. 15, 2012. A revised slimline model (PCH-2000) followed in 2013 and 2014.
So... build your own instead? (Score:2)
Instead of trying to unlock a locked-down, DRM-infested console, why not just build your own? There's dozens of Raspberry Pi-based portable console projects out there to copy or to use as a starting point.
What games can a DIY console builder buy? (Score:2)
Instead of trying to unlock a locked-down, DRM-infested console, why not just build your own?
One reason is that a console you have to build is unlikely to have a lot of notable* commercial games made for it, except perhaps dumping 8- and 16-bit game cartridges with a Retrode or dumping DOS games with a floppy drive and emulating them. For physical bulk reasons, it's less convenient to have to carry two handhelds, one for AAA games and higher-budget indie games and a second for amateur games and lower-budget indie games. It's as if PC users had to buy one laptop for Steam games and build a second fo
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By P3b+ I assume you mean Raspberry Pi 3B+. What case and what Raspberry Pi native games (not emulation) are any good? PlayStation Vita came with a case, and native games were available.
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Then what should Pi emulator users use for "native" games?
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Anything else before that its good for.
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because the good engaging games exist for the Vita, while your Pi will only have lame crap games. The vita is an appliance, users don't care if it's locked down or not, they lose nothing with it being locked down.
Form-factor / Power (Score:2)
why not just build your own?
Because cramming a decent amount of processing power in small form-factor requires some engineering skills and a decent manufacturing capability.
There's dozens of Raspberry Pi-based portable console projects out there to copy or to use as a starting point.
But they'll end up:
- being less powerful
- larger (hard to fit all the raspberry pi ports into such a thin shell)
- or require you to desolder every single connector off the RPi3+B board and completely rethink its thermal management (the RPi3+B uses every single metal part as thermal sink. That include the large network and USB connector. That's why
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It existed in the first place? (Score:3)
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I remember some TV ads a while back for it, basically trying to go head to head, with mobile games on the iPhone and Android devices...
It didn't fare well.
My personal view it is because of the following (Not backed up by any facts)
1. It wouldn't pass the "Mom, I need it!" test. Phones in comparison have the ability to be phone, and do productive things including to be able to call home with an emergency. Granted on your Phone Mom knows that you are going to be playing games on it 99% of the time, but at le
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SNES couldn't play NES game by just plugging it in. IIRC, the SNES was a bigger jump over the NES than the 3DS over the nDS
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Phone technology has improved rapidly. back in 2008 there was a 10 year lag between your mobile device and your PC
Input technology, not so much. Back in 2008, most phones not from Apple had physical buttons that could be used as game controls. Now the only physical buttons are system controls: suspend, home, and volume. This leaves the touch screen and accelerometer: good for point-and-click games, highly suboptimal for anything else. Clip-on controllers with a physical directional input and buttons exist, but they're bulky, and I haven't seen sales figures as to whether developers can rely on the existence of a user b
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I haven't seen sales figures as to whether developers can rely on the existence of a user base.
At least emulators are almost guaranteed to support physical controllers.
But are there enough potential customers who bought a physical controller for emulator use and are willing to pay for native games that use the same controller? I'm asking how many buyers a developer of a game for Android+controller can reach through Google Play Store.
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> 3. You probably already have a phone, you do not want to carry an other device for a single purpose. (Hence why I never used my Palm Pilot III)
Depends how well that other device can do the single purpose. I carry a 3DS around on my commute by transit because most mobile games either have the depth of a shallow puddle, or they want you to use touchscreen "joysticks" and buttons which is a universally terrible experience. Having tactile controls is a huge advantage for the 3DS, hence I will carry it ar
How well did Vita end up selling? (Score:2)
I'm much more of follower of computer-related things than game consoles.... but I remember checking out the Vita when it was new, because one of our kids wanted a portable system. (They wound up with one of Nintendo's offerings, which I suspect most kids did?) The Vita seemed like it was priced pretty high, and didn't have the compelling game selection to justify buying it, back then.
I believe it had pretty decent specs and graphics capabilities .... but that's where I think they run into some issues wit
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I still have an original model Vita and only ended up buying maybe 5 or 6 games for it. Persona 4 Golden, Zero Escape, Steins;Gate, a few others.
A year ago I jailbroke it and brought over all my PSP games because it was easier than finding reliable replacement batteries for my PSP.
There were two major issues, IMO -
1) Expensive proprietary memory cards. Sony likes doing this shit. They should stop.
2) It seemed like part of the issue was Sony wasn't as gung-ho about pushing the Vita as a viable platform in
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> 2) It seemed like part of the issue was Sony wasn't as gung-ho about pushing the Vita as a viable platform in North America.
They were. Until the sales in the US (and Europe by proxy) were luke-warm and developers weren't jumping on it like they did the PSP.
There was no Grand Theft Auto titles for it, compared to the THREE! (2 3D, 1 2D a la GTA1-2) GTA titles that Rockstar made for the PSP.
The Proprietary memory cards were an issue, yes. A huge one, but the lack of western developer support (even from S
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It went up against Nintendo DS AND the PS4 (yes Sony competed against itself) as a portable game system. DS killed it as a portable because no one wanted to make games for a system that was so locked down and it wasn't very good as a portable version of the PS4. Along came Switch and that was it.
My kid has one, but he is a hardware hacker and turned the thing into an open platform portable console which is what it should have been in the first place.
Ah, Sony. You will never learn
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Nintendo DS? I mean I guess the DS was still around when the Vita was launched... but are you talking about the 3DS? Referring to that console as a DS is a bit like referring to a SNES as a NES.
Given the 3DS is backwards compatible to the DS (mostly), no it's not.
Lots of negativity in this thread (Score:4, Interesting)
So I'll gush a little about my Vita.
I bought the Vita to replace the aged but thoroughly hacked PSP that had been my only entertainment for a year in Afghanistan. Soon, the exploits had been found, a damn near perfect PSP emulator was rigged up and sideloaded, and the Vita became a complete replacement for the earlier device.
Everybody loves the Nintendo handhelds, and they are great- but the PSP and the Vita are the best of their generation IMO. Both systems seem to be designed for people with much smaller hands than me, but with a proper grip, the controls are smooth and perfect. As close to a real controller as a handheld can get. I can't say that for any of the other handhelds.
The device is just capable. Stream your PC games from our desktop system upstairs? No Problem. Remote control your PS4 from your front porch? Too easy. Enjoy a nice movie on the sexy OLED screen? Why not.
Then there is the "Hacking" scene. It's quite the rabbit hole. It's hard to keep all of the exploit methods and firmware versions straight for the Vita, but it has the pretty neat payoff of blowing the system wide opened. This enabled the use of microSD cards instead of the low-capacity expensive Sony card, and suddenly you can carry pretty much the entire playstation library around in your pocket. It's a shame though, as it's the same for the Vita library, and I'm certain it's the piracy this enables that killed the system in the long run. It really is a tragedy.
I've built the Pigrrl handheld and loaded it up. I was sure that would be the one to take my Vitas place. It was a fun build, but at the end of the day, compared to the Vita, the screen is kinda shitty, the controls are clicky, and the interface gets harder to use the more games you put on it, it's less comfortable, and it just cant do as much.
I'm fairy certain the Vita represents the last of the really great standalone offline portable consoles.
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Can't imagine why these things didn't take off in the mainstream...
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As another launch Vita owner, I want to chime in with my thoughts as well.
While I wouldn't necessarily gush over the Vita quite as much as the Parent, it was a solid portable console. Sony made a lot of good technical decisions in building it: a reasonably performant SoC with a DX9-class GPU, Wide I/O memory to feed the damn thing (you won't see Wide I/O memory very often), a surprisingly good D-pad, twin sticks(!), and a fairly hefty battery, all in a good form factor a bit over 5 inches.
Sony's poorer tech