Sony has some bad news for PS Vita owners.
According to a report by Game Informer, the company will no longer support their PS Vita console, after an interview by 4Gamer in Japan with Sony Executive Vice President Masayasu Ito confirmed that the company will no longer produce games for the gaming handheld device.
"Currently, there are no first party titles that are in development for the PlayStation Vita. Third party companies are working hard on the PlayStation Vita," Masayu said in the interview via Game Informer.
The Vice President also shared that with third-party developers already doing the work on producing games for their handheld console, they will instead focus on strategizing and building their current generation console, PlayStation 4.
On the other hand, in a separate interview by Game Informer with Sony President of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida during the E3 2015, it was revealed that the reason for the company's shift of focus to PS4 is due to the increasing customer demand for better and high quality games which cannot be done with PS Vita.
"The expectation of the graphical quality and size of the world for these type of games have risen after the launch of PlayStation 4. The same thing happened with the PSP. People were so excited to be able to play PS2 graphics games on the go. After PS3 launched, expectations grew. The types of games on PSP were not as attractive," Yoshida told Game Informer.
The gaming news outlet also mentioned that the removal of Sony's support does not mean that there will no longer be games produced for the console, emphasizing that there are still many developers who are even porting PS3 and PS4 games in the console.
Meanwhile, as mentioned by Game Rant, the announcement was no longer surprising given that Sony has been ignoring the console for a long time now and has since placed PS4 on top of its priorities, as proven with the fact that the top games from PS Vita have been ported to PS3 and PS4.
However, they cited that it still disappointing especially for owners of the device since the company could reverse the current dwindling situation of PS Vita with proper "first-party" support. But as it turns out, Sony is no longer willing to engage that much on its PS Vita.
Game Rant suggested that the device could still be useful with its remote functionality, allowing players to play PS4 games in PS Vita even on the go.
Nonetheless, they anticipate that PS Vita will be the last handheld console that Sony will produce given also the emerging trend of Virtual Reality gaming.