Why you should buy a PlayStation Vita
The device is considered to have sold fairly well in Japan, and still a crucial part of Sony's overall strategy in the region, while Sony has acknowledged that the device still has a very vocal and passionate user-base in the West as well, with the company still encouraging third party companies to create games for the device. PR Newswire August 17, 2011. Archived from on January 19, 2013. They can be used to take photos or videos using built-in applications on the system. It was seen as a success in that it was the only handheld video game platform that had ever significantly competed with Nintendo for market share, with almost 80 million units sold in its lifespan, roughly the same amount as Nintendo's had during the. If you want a high-quality handheld that can play a slew of PlayStation hits, indie gems and obscure Japanese titles, there really isn't a better option out there. Remote play OK, Christmas is coming. The system, only known by its code name "Next Generation Portable", was announced to be a handheld gaming device that aimed for quality visuals, which was later clarified to not be taken at a literal level because, according to David Coombes, platform research manager at , "Well, it's not going to run at 2 GHz [like the PS3] because the battery would last five minutes and it would probably set fire to your pants". The Vita has entered this phase, and already we're seeing some interesting applications, from custom apps and games to being able to overclock the processor. Bottom line Do you really need a Vita these days? Three-axis electronic compass• While the system managed to stay afloat as a minor success, other issues continued to persist, including the high price of the system in comparison to its main competitor, the , and its sibling device, the PS3, the high price of its memory cards used for game and data storage, and the increasing popularity of and. The Vita is very much alive, and while it might not be thriving like the , it's still one of the , and totally worth owning. Production of Vita hardware officially ended on March 1, 2019. While not completely reversing the sales trends of the Vita, the lower costs of making or porting smaller-budget games made it easier for developers to make a profit on the systems's smaller userbase, and in turn, increased consumer attention on the console, keeping the device afloat. 2013-09-09, Corporate Release ,• 6 inset; box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba 255, 255, 255, 0. And many indie titles are cross-buy enabled, so if you buy the PS4 version, the Vita version will be included for free. Though Sony has not released exact sales figures, late-lifespan sales estimates are around 15 to 16 million units. At the time of the announcement, estimated that the Vita userbase had grown to approximately 16 million units. Archived from on July 9, 2010. Brian Crecente July 7, 2010. The blues, in-particular, shine on the OLED display. But if you're both a hardcore gamer and one who's willing to mess with some hacks, then you can get some incredible functionality out of your Vita, making it one of the best pieces of handheld kit on the market. Its power was later described by Sony engineers as about halfway between the PSP and PS3. The Vita is a great way to escape from your little cousins asking if you want to a lick of their candy cane, so you can dive back into the world of Red Dead Redemption 2. Prior to the Vita's release, several third-party studios showcased of the device by exporting existing assets from their counterpart and then rendering them on the device, high budget examples including , , and. The price cut also coincided with the release of a slight redesign of the system, the "PS Vita 2000" model. While none of these particular high budget tech demos materialized into actual game releases, and few big-budget Western games would be made for both outside of , many Japanese development teams would go on to develop mid-level games that would release for both platforms, including Falcom's duology, Compile Hearts' original trilogy, and many entries from Tecmo Koei's and series. Sony continued to support the system with games through 2013 as well, albeit lesser so, with titles such as and , along with a handful of other Western-developed ports such as and. It also shares the Remote Play and PS Now functionality of a regular Vita. The end result is similar to what a console does with its through. Launch and early years [ ] On June 6, 2011, at , Sony announced that the device's official name would be the PlayStation Vita, with the word "vita" being Latin for "life". History [ ] Background [ ] After the success of 's of throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, with little market competition, and 's massive success with its and around the same time, Sony entered the handheld market as well. In addition to these input methods, specific to just the Vita, is a secondary touchpad that is on the back of the device. Remote Play interactivity with PlayStation 4 [ ] Main article: All games developed for the PlayStation 4, with the exception of games requiring the use of special peripherals such as , are playable on the Vita through. Shifting focus [ ] Towards the end of 2013, around the launch of Sony's next video game device, the the , Sony began making comments in regards to the change in focus with the Vita. Michael McWhertor November 17, 2010. Other hardware includes , a , built-in , and connectivity, and two. In September 2015, Yoshida stated that Sony had no current plans for a Vita successor, stating that "climate is not healthy for now because of the huge dominance of mobile gaming. Additionally, the battery can supply about five hours for video watching, and up to nine hours of music listening with the screen off. Archived from on July 31, 2014. Shortly after, reports of for the handheld had reportedly already been shipped to numerous video game developers including both and third-party developers to start making games for the device, a report later confirmed by Executive Producer Shaun Himmerick. All Vita games are also made available to be downloaded digitally on the via the , although not all games are released physically. I own both the 1000 and 2000 Vitas, and I can tell you, the 1000 does look better. The system does allow for additional external battery solutions as well. Instead, it uses a touchscreen-based UI dubbed , which includes various social networking features via the. A number of other third party apps commonly found on mobile devices have also been made available on the Vita: , removed in 2015 , broken , removed in 2015 , , LiveTweet Sony's third-party client for , broken , , discontinued , removed in 2016 , broken , , and removed in 2015. : February 23, 2012• More PS3 games are available for streaming on the Vita through Sony's service , though they are streamed over the internet in the form of rather than directly from a physical PS3 console. The system's web browser supports , cookies, and , but not. Byford, Sam February 22, 2013. The two cameras feature the abilities of face detection, head detection, and head tracking. The Vita is also backward compatible with the majority of the — the group of games Sony has made available digitally for download, and — small-budget downloadable titles originally created for the PSP and PS3. The Vita 2000 also comes in a slew of nifty colors. The PS Vita is incompatible with standard , such as , and instead stores data on proprietary PS Vita memory cards, which are available in sizes of 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. LiveArea, the user interface for the Vita Unlike the PSP and PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Vita does not use the interface. If you're a casual gamer, then your PlayStation and Nintendo Switch combo will get you by just fine. Its initial launch sales were generally seen as positive, selling over 300,000 units in Japan, and 200,000 units in North America. In Japan, select downloadable and titles became backward compatible as well. The 3G service has been partnered with in Japan, in the US, in Canada and in Europe and Australia. trials for PlayStation Now functionality on the PS Vita began on October 14, 2014 in North America. Schramm, Mike April 6, 2011. A concentrated effort to attract smaller independent developers in the West, combined with strong support from mid-level Japanese companies, helped keep the platform afloat. The PS Vita 2000 series, a revised version of the system, was released across 2013 and 2014. And the game train still hasn't stopped with the Vita. Its developer, , had decided to release and future Monster Hunter games exclusively on the , where it would sell millions of copies for Sony's main competitor. By the end of 2015, research firm EEDAR estimated the sales of the Vita worldwide to be around 10 million. First implemented in 2014, the service was announced to be discontinued on the Vita on August 15, 2017. The sales of the Vita started strong at launch but then stalled and greatly underperformed. Modding As gaming systems grow older, dedicated communities usually find ways to hack devices for more functionality. Sony also released the Vita model revision, the PCH-2000, which was generally well received by critics as well for addressing a number prior complaints about the system, which included a price and size reduction. Don't Starve, Lumines: Electronic Symphony, The Walking Dead, Rogue Legacy, Spelunky, OlliOlli, Luftrausers, Guacamelee, Sound Shapes, Severed, Resogun, Fez and the list goes on. Similarly, in the United States, the system debuted with 200,000 units sold in the first month, before slinking down into an amount of about 50,000 a month. Rob Crossley July 6, 2010. Archived from on November 23, 2011. While it was routinely outsold by its main competitor, the Nintendo 3DS, the Vita still managed to be one of the top consoles sold overall, partially due to Japan's preference towards handheld gaming. Ben Gilbert September 16, 2010. From 2013 onward, Sony was able to reverse the trajectory of the system by changing focus, aiming to be more of a product than one with mass market appeal — focusing more on small Western mobile phone games and mid-level Japanese developed games, and attaching it to the rise of popularity of its platform with its connectivity functions. Still, the system under-performed; while Sony projected selling 16 million units of combined Vita and PSP systems, it had to slash its forecast twice in the same year—down to 12 and then 10 million units sold. Rear• Inglis, Blair January 30, 2014. But while the 3DS has aged like a Palm Pilot, with its chunky plastic body and mediocre displays, the Vita has aged like an iPod, still very functional, and totally cool to be seen in public. The console is the successor to the , and a part of the brand of gaming devices; as part of the , it primarily competed with the. A maximum of 500 applications and games can be stored on the device at a time, regardless of data storage available. If you're into ports, Persona 4 Golden is an obvious choice. However, in the year after the device's successful launch, sales of the hardware and its bigger budget games stalled, threatening to end its lifespan. Archived from PDF on September 29, 2011. While the focus on indie games kept the device afloat in the West, in Japan, no such measures were necessary, as the Vita maintained moderate hardware sales. Archived from on June 7, 2013. In December, CEO stated that Sony aimed to appeal to a wide demographic of people by using multiple input methods on future hardware; buttons and joysticks for traditional handheld game system users, and touchscreens for users. In November 2014, president suggested that the new approach was working on hardware level, stating that Vita sales had increased since the implementation of PS4 Remote Play, though he and another Sony representative did not give specific figures. After a slow start in the worldwide market, it was invigorated in Japan with multiple releases in the series. Despite this, the system still only managed to sell 4 million units worldwide in its first 10 months on the market, and estimated by analysts to only be at 6 million units sold after two years of availability. Archived from on September 26, 2011. 8 oz 3G PCH-2000: 219 grams 7. " At , he had stated that Sony would not be making any more AAA, big budget games to the system, but by October, the comment had been revised that Sony would not be making any more games for it at all. Strong support by Japanese developers also helped, with companies such as , , , , , , and releasing many games in the and genre to help kept a steady flow of mid-level releases coming to the system. Games from Sony's initiative had initially been compatible, but were removed when the service was shutdown in September 2015. Reception and sales [ ] According to , the Vita's original hardware release was generally well-received with critics, although a few concerns persisted as well. 3-5 hours for games, 5 hours for video, 9 hours for music in stand-by mode PCH-2000: approx. For the slimmer , Sony opted to use an LCD display. The Vita features a quad-core CPU and a quad-core GPU. Further details were announced at 2011, including that Sony would be dropping the PSP's disc format in favor of small game cartridges of 2 GB or 4 GB size variants. Because once you log in with your Vita to your PlayStation Network account, you'll have a trove of games ready for the download. Surely, given the system's age, you'd think that using that money toward a Switch is a more worthwhile investment. Oli Welsh January 27, 2011. 5 mm headphone jack, Bluetooth Input• That depends on the type of gamer you are. When the limit is reached, applications or games must be moved or deleted in order to access those beyond the limit. And unlike the Switch, the Vita has Bluetooth support. With the use of a Vita, PS4, and PS4 game, this allows a PS4 game to be run on the PS4, but its output transmitted to the Vita, with the Vita being used for the controller input, and the image and sound being transmitted to the Vita's screen and speakers instead of a. Michael McWhertor September 27, 2010. Moriarty, Colin December 17, 2013. It has all of the same features with a slightly smaller size, extended battery life, and an screen instead of OLED. The Vita's internal battery has between 3—5 hours of power for game playing, depending on the processing power required for the game, screen brightness, sound level and network connections, as well as other factors. In July 2014, Yoshida stated that the company would focus on it less as a dedicated handheld video game console, and more on its combination of uses, stating "it's not about individual Vita games any more. Sony addressed the "economics of Vita game development" issue with beginning on focusing on the fact that almost all PlayStation 4 games could be streamed and played through a Vita through. Reasons cited included the company focusing on supporting the PS4, and the fact that it felt that third party Japanese developers and Western indie developers were sufficiently supporting the device. On September 20, 2018, Sony announced at 2018 that the Vita would be discontinued in 2019, ending its hardware production. Similarly, many Western critics felt that the low sales through 2013 would lead to an early death for the product. Each game or application is represented by its own circle icon, and selecting it leads the user to a panel with multiple options present, including running software itself, going to its respective website through the internet, seeing if there are available for the software, and seeing a -like list of activities related to it, such as installing it or obtaining trophies, for both the user and others the user has interacted with recently. Additionally, while the Monster Hunter series had significantly boosted the sales of the PSP, its absence instead hurt the Vita. : February 22, 2012• The sticks are small, and feel most similar to the Switch's joy-cons, and the touch screen is responsive. This is only a little more than half of the sales of its actual market competitor, the DS, which was more than 150 million units by the end of 2011. Overall, Sony fell far short of the worldwide sales targets of 10 million Vitas sold by the end of March 2013. Schreier, Jason. Similarly, sales dropped off to about 30,000 to 50,000 units sold per month for the year after launch in North America. and various indie game developers praised the platform for its wide selection of more original and niche video games, and the strong respective sales of them. Like the PS3 and PS4, the Vita contains support for games. As of its initial Western launch in February 2012, out of 44 professional critic reviews, 9 fell in the "Great" rating, 29 in the "Good" rating, 6 in the "Mixed" rating, and 0 in the "Bad" or "Awful" rating. At the 2016 , research analyst firm EEDAR estimated the sales of the Vita to be about at 10 million unit sold through the end of 2015. The system was designed so that it would be easy for developers to extract PS3 game assets and in turn use them to make Vita versions of games. This built moderate sales in Japan and a smaller yet passionate userbase in the West. Though this led to less diversity in its game library, it strengthened support in , , and Western-developed. The debut was the highest Sony game debut for the system, and the second highest, only to Namco Bandai's late 2013 release of on the platform. While not giving specific figures, Sony stated that Vita sales beat projections in North America in 2014, which it was happy and surprised with, sometimes even falling out of stock. 2 million units as of the end of February 2012, 4 million by the end of 2012, and were only estimated by analysts to have reached 6 million by the end of 2013, figures that have not been confirmed due to Sony's ceasing to release Vita sales figures after hitting the 4 million mark at the end of 2012. Karmali, Luke March 10, 2015. in particular was successful for the platform, with it selling over 1. Throughout 2010, Sony would not confirm these reports of a PSP successor, but would make comments regarding making future hardware. The games The Vita has a bit of something for everyone. The newer model also comes with 1 GB of internal storage memory, although it is not possible to use both the internal memory and memory card concurrently. Rumors of a successor to the PSP came as early as July 2009 when reported that Sony was working on such a device, which would utilize the PowerVR SGX543MP processor and perform at a level similar to the original. Views on the hardware dropped to more moderate levels in 2013, after the platform's initial sales lulls. Since its launch, digital-only releases have slowly become more prominent, partially in an effort to reduce production costs for release on the platforms comparatively smaller user-base, and partially due to the influx smaller-scale indie mobile phone games that have always been digital-only releases. Towards the end of its lifespan, Vita versions of games began to be cancelled, in favor of PS4 or Nintendo Switch releases. It would have been nicer if it were glass, but plastic gets the job done. Of course, the Vita can also play PSP and PS1 games, so if you ever feel like jumping back into Final Fantasy VII, Crash Bandicoot, or God of War Ghost of Sparta, Vita is the device to do it on. The model also roughly added about an extra hour of battery life. Gaston, Martin May 29, 2013. : March 20, 2015• This model has a Type B port, which can be used to charge the device along with any standard micro USB cable. 2013-11-04, , Siliconera• However, reviewers felt more mixed on the decision to change from to screen in the revised model, with some feeling it led to a minor downgrade in image quality. Although some of the Vita's big hitters have made transitions over to the PS4, there are plenty of great exclusives, including Freedom Wars and Soul Sacrifice. The device features a "" shape similar to the design of the original PlayStation Portable, with a 5-inch 130 mm in the centre of the device. With the series being less popular in western regions, it failed to revive the platform in the same way. 2 inset; -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba 0, 0, 0, 0. Production of the system and physical game cards in the West ended in March 2019: Sony has no plans for a successor. Sarkar, Samit February 15, 2017. Michael McWhertor January 27, 2011. In line with Sony's ambition to combine aspects of traditional video game consoles with mobile devices like and , the Vita contains a multitude of. Phillips, Tom September 13, 2016. The amount of RAM allows cross-game chat to be used on the system. is also possible through Sony's motion sensing system, consisting of a three-axis and a three-axis. The hardware Any way you look at it, the Vita is a slick-looking handheld. Colin Moriarty September 14, 2011. It also obtained million-selling software in the same year, with the Japanese Vita release of. Metacritic editor Jason Dietz noted that reviewers tended to praise the Vita's actual hardware design and operating system, but expressed some concern on its practicality, namely competing in 2012 onward, with a large size and price, where mobile phones with large screens and cheap games were prevalent as an alternative. The device features two analog sticks, a , a set of standard PlayStation face buttons , , and , two shoulder buttons L and R , a PlayStation button and Start and Select buttons. In mid-2017, estimated the Vita userbase to be around 15 million. Jeff Rubenstein January 27, 2011. Sam Byford March 24, 2016. The size and shape of the card itself is very similar to an. motion sensing• After 2012, Sony ceased releasing direct sales figures of the Vita, instead opting to release combined sales figures with it and the PSP. However, a large dropoff occurred in both regions. As of present, no other reliable sales figures have been released. Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps and YouTube no longer function as Vita apps, but continue to be available by using the Vita's web browser. With higher-profile games not pushing the system sales enough in 2012, big third party companies like and started reducing or eliminating support for the system, especially in the West. The whole ecosystem with PS4 at the center, the Vita's a part of that. Sony has stated that the Vita generally runs well under its full clock speed due to overheating and battery consumption issues that would ensue, instead placing its processing power "around halfway between the current PSP and the PS3". In mid-2017, estimated that approximately 15 million units of the system had been sold, while by September 2018, USGamer estimated it had grown to about 16 million units. Sony released the , a short-lived, re-purposed version of the Vita that uses a screen like a , discontinued at the end of 2015. 2 million physical copies in Japan alone as of September 2017. Additionally, big games such as sold well and roughly in-line with their home console counterparts. Nintendo software, even on a chintzy 400 x 240 resolution display, was — and still is — incredibly compelling. However, the redesign did remove the screen in favor of a cheaper screen. 59 in d Mass PCH-1000: 260 grams 9. The Vita should not be considered a main purchase, but a secondary one. 7 oz Wi-Fi download only download only Predecessor PlayStation Portable Website The PlayStation Vita PS Vita or Vita is a developed and marketed by. That plastic does scratch easily, so it's recommended that you layer it with screen protectors. In March 2016, Sony announced that instead, it would be forming a new company, "Forward Works", and be instead concentrating on bringing PlayStation-based games to mobile platforms like and. Phillips, Tom September 26, 2015. The Vita launched in the west with 25 titles, including original titles such as and , and ports of games such as and. : March 2, 2012• The Vita launched with 26 titles in Japan, with Sony announcing that there were over 100 titles in development prior to the system's release overall. Upon inserting a PS Vita memory card, the system will offer to copy the existing data from the internal memory to the new card. The silver trim surrounds two pieces of plastic that sandwich the device, giving it an ultra-premium look. Good, Owen August 20, 2013. Pre-loaded apps include an , a "Content Manager" app for monitoring data saved to the device, an app, a music playing app, a photo app, and a video playing app. 2 million units were reported as sold as of February 26, 2012 — after it had launched in most regions. The original model of the handheld includes a 5-inch 130 mm multi-touch , two , and front and shoulder input, and supports , , and optional. Robinson, Martin July 9, 2014. The system was released in Japan in November 2013, in North America in October 2014, and in Europe on November 14, 2014. By November, Senior Vice President of , Patrick Soderlund, confirmed that he had seen that the PlayStation Portable successor existed, but could not confirm details. If you're a fan of AAA titles, there are games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Killzone: Mercenary, Gravity Rush, LittleBigPlanet Vita and Dragon's Crown. : October 2, 2012 3G• In 2004, it released the PSP to compete with the as part of the. The original model, which is slightly chunky when compared with the later 2000 iteration, is still solid. Leadbetter, Richard May 29, 2013. John Koller February 10, 2014. 2014-12-11, , Reuters• The model was released in six colors in Japan white, black, light blue, lime green, pink, and khaki , although it was only released in black and light blue in North America and Europe. It was first released in on December 17, 2011, and in , , and other international territories beginning on February 22, 2012. It's more about how Vita can have multiple uses — with PS4 , PS3 games with , and the dedicated games. The real showstopper with the original Vita was its OLED display. 2014-08-12, , Gamespot• Sony continued to make games for the device, though in smaller number than in past. But only in a side-by-side comparison. Due to the difference in controller input between the Vita and a DualShock controller, Vita games that are dependent on the system's touch-screen, rear touchpad, microphone, or camera are not compatible. The heavier support from Japan, in turn, also helped support the system in the West as well, with many games in the , , , , and series into English on the Vita, or made playable through the system's with digital PSP games. The March 2017 launch of the , which operates on a similar concept of providing high budget video games on a portable unit, further overshadowed the Vita, though niche support through indie games and JRPGs continued into the year. Between the system's launch and January 2013, 4 million units were sold worldwide. Main articles: , , and The device is backward compatible with most PSP games; however, its lack of a disc drive limits this capability to those titles which have been digitally released on the via the , but not physical PSP games or films. Byford, Sam March 12, 2013. If you jump on the or the , you'll notice that games are still occasionally dropping for the system. Applications [ ] A number of are available to run on the Vita, some initially pre-loaded on the device, while others are available via Sony's PlayStation Store. Despite reports of the delaying the release of the device, Sony reconfirmed that it was on track for a late 2011 release in Japan and a February 2012 release date for other major regions of the world. Luke Plunkett July 7, 2009. Archived from PDF on March 27, 2016.。 。
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