PS Vita Retrospective: The Flop That Indies And JRPGs Kept Alive

The PS Vita was built to bring big-budget console games and the new habit of gaming on phones together in one handheld. It launched well. However, within a year sales of the hardware and its bigger games had stalled, and the platform looked close to the end.

Instead, smaller independent studios in the West and mid-level Japanese companies kept it going. As a result the library leaned toward JRPGs and visual novels from Japan and indie games from the West, which built moderate sales in Japan and a smaller but passionate following elsewhere. Not the plan, admittedly, but a very good consolation prize.

Key facts

Released

December 17, 2011 in Japan, February 15, 2012 in North America, February 22, 2012 in EuropeSource

Launch price

US$249.99Source

Units sold

About 15 to 16 million, an estimate, since Sony never released exact figuresSource

Screen

5-inch OLED touchscreen on the original model, 960 by 544 pixelsSource

Controls

Two analog sticks and a rear touchpadSource

Battery life

About 3 to 5 hours of games on the original modelSource

Discontinued

March 1, 2019Source

How the Vita tried to be a PS3 and a phone at once

The PSP had been a mixed result for Sony. It was the only handheld that had ever competed seriously with Nintendo for market share, yet its almost 80 million units were only a little more than half of what the DS sold. So for the successor, CEO Kazuo Hirai wanted to reach both camps, with buttons and joysticks for handheld players and touchscreens for smartphone users.

Sony announced it on January 27, 2011 under the code name Next Generation Portable, promising PlayStation 3 quality visuals. That promise came with a footnote, though. As one Sony manager put it, running at PS3 speed "the battery would last five minutes and it would probably set fire to your pants". Its power ended up about halfway between the PSP and the PS3.

Later on, Sony sold the Vita as a partner for its other machines, including Remote Play of PlayStation 4 games, and the slimmer 2000 model of 2013 and 2014 swapped the OLED for an LCD while extending the battery life. Still, the platform stalled in 2017 when the Nintendo Switch arrived, and production ended on March 1, 2019 with no direct successor.

The best PS Vita games

Ranked by how often players recommend them, with picks other players backed counting extra. Persona 4 Golden takes #1, and Tearaway makes the top five.

Every PS Vita list