Released in Japan on December 17, 2011, Sony‘s PlayStation Vita turns ten years old today.
2021 marks the tenth and final year for Sony’s last portable console: the PlayStation Vita. Sony has been winding down the Vita’s life span over the past few years in preparation to focus on other projects. It halted production of the hardware in 2019, alongside its physical cartridges.
Publishers purchased their final cartridges around this time and released the games over the following two years. East Asia Software sold the final two official physical Vita games, Mooseman and A Winter’s Daydream yesterday (December 16, 2021). Sony also ceased applications from developers to submit games for sale through the PlayStation Vita store in July this year.
The PlayStation Vita launched during the era of the PlayStation 3, and was the first portable console which could boast capabilities similar to its home counterpart, with many games being sold on both consoles simultaneously.
Persona 4 Golden, a remake of PlayStation 2’s Persona 4 with upgraded and added content, was the most popular console exclusive release for the platform, selling 200,000 copies within the first week of release. The handheld saw a new lease of life upon the release of the PlayStation 4 as well.
Using the remote play feature, players could now enjoy their PlayStation 4 games from anywhere in the world using their PlayStation Vita. As long as the PlayStation 4 is on and connected to the internet, the PlayStation Vita could stream the game to itself.
While not particularly commercially successful, the PlayStation Vita reached a passionate and niche fan base with a number critically acclaimed visual novels, JRPGs, 2D platformers and roguelikes gaining success on the portable. Some of its most popular titles include: Gravity Rush, Freedom Wars, Soul Sacrifice Delta, and the Danganronpa series.
The portable console was also well known for being the best way to play classic original PlayStation and PlayStation Portable games, including the Final Fantasy series up to 10.
In other news, Valve will be upgrading many of Steam’s most popular games such as the Half-Life series, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to run well on its handheld system.
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