It’s no surprise that the PlayStation Vita hasn’t taken off as much as Sony would have hoped, and earlier this week, the publishing giant has officially pulled support for a few applications on the dedicated handheld.
As of now, the YouTube app for the Vita has been removed from the PlayStation Store, and it will no longer receive support or updates from Sony beginning April 20th. Players who have already downloaded the app will be able to continue using it, though.
On the other hand, Maps, a fairly straightforward map and route planning app, will be removed from the Vita’s operating system via a firmware update that is due out in March. Near, the Vita’s equivalent to the Nintendo 3DS’ StreetPass functionality, will lose most of its support as part of the firmware update as well. This application in particular allowed Vita users to see other players around them, and get a glimpse into what games were popular in their area. Furthermore, it allowed for virtual items to be picked up and sent off, though few games took advantage of this service.
Sony has issued a statement pertaining to the news, saying that it “decided to delete the features after considering users’ needs and market trends.” The reason behind the move to pull YouTube is slightly different, however, given that the Google-owned giant “is upgrading their API for YouTube, and this has made it difficult for SCE to continue support of the application on PS Vita.”
Nevertheless, PlayStation Vita owners can emulate the Maps and YouTube services via the system’s web browser.
