Earlier this year I purchased one of these:
It’s the Playstation Vita, which is their followup game system to the PSP. It actually came out quite some time ago (December 2011), but I held off buying one simply because there was nothing on it that tickled my fancy. The game that eventually lured me enough was TKX by Jeff Minter:
There’s a lot to like about the Vita. It’s solidly built, has very nice controls (especially the dual sticks), is solid state only (which means no silly discs like the PSP) and has a beautiful screen. And when I say beautiful, I mean beautiful. To save costs Sony has actually downgraded the screen in newer models to an LED, but the first version (and the one I have) includes an OLED screen which is simply the brightest and highest resolution screen on anything I own. Yes it means the battery life is abysmal (maybe 2 hours) and the unit is quite heavy but I’d say the tradeoff is worth it for the great screen.
The problem with the Vita is, well it’s that it’s pretty much a dead system.
What does that mean? It means that here in America retail support for the system has floundered, and interest amongst consumers is at an all-time low. Few games are released for the system and those that are don’t have any sort of wide appeal. Furthermore, there are no games at all scheduled after November this year and Sony themselves have said they will release no games themselves. By this time next year I very much doubt this system will be in stores, if produced at all.
And yet these past few weeks I’ve been having more fun with my Vita than any of my other game systems! These ‘no wide appeal’ games infrequently coming out are mostly niche Japanese RPGs which mean they’re my game of choice and I’ve been snapping them up! Games like…
Demon Gaze, an awesome Wizardry clone featuring a complex game system and fabulous graphics…
Toukiden, the closest game every to capture the magic of Monster Hunter. The screenshot above shows how impressive the graphics of the Vita can be in an AAA game…
Persona 4 Golden which I haven’t played yet (it’s next on my list) but if it’s anywhere near as good as Persona 3 on the PSP will be a gem!
There’s many more, and most of the remaining games are of this genre as well. Even if nothing else is released after November, I’ll still have a library that will take me a year or more to finish (assuming I ever stop playing Toukiden). For a dead system, that’s not so bad!
So what killed the Vita? It was an also-ran outside of Japan, where it seemed to immediately inherit the niche market from the PSP. Western exclusives were nonexistent and ports from PS3 games (such as Borderlands 2) were flawed. Obviously competition from the 3DS (especially Capcom’s choice to move Monster Hunter to 3DS) and tablets/phones hurt as well. But ultimately the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of Sony, who for many many years now have demonstrated they have no idea how to market a handheld outside of Japan.
Rest in Peace Vita. You may be a dead system and simply not know it yet, but I’m going to be playing you for a long time yet!