The future isn’t about to get any brighter for Playstation Vita owners if recent statements made by Sony are any indication. According to Sony Computer Entertainment Vice President Masayasu Ito, the handheld won’t be seeing any more first-party games anytime soon, if at all. Speaking with Japanese game site 4Gamer, Ito said that the system has nevertheless found a recent boost in attention from teenage players:
“At the beginning the PS Vita did not resonate with age targets under 20,” Ito said, “but now the situation is changing and the popularity with younger demographics is increasing. Minecraft: PS Vita Edition has provided a boost.”
That, however, doesn’t mean the Vita will be drowning in more Sony-made exclusives, but it will getting new paint-jobs.
“In addition to that, a variety of third party games is also planned for the future, and in order to further accelerate that flow, we decided to release new colors for the PS Vita this fall.”
When asked on the first party situation, Ito-san replied that Sony won’t be developing any more games on its own. Rather, the company plans on letting third-party studios expand the Vita’s library while it shifts the bulk of its resources towards development for the Playstation 4. That would prove difficult when SOE president Shuhei Yoshida claimed that no AAA third-party games were expected to be a part of the system’s future either.
“Currently, first party studios have no titles in development for PS Vita. Since third parties are working very hard on PS Vita, SCE’s own strategy is to focus on PS4, which is a new platform.”
Sony recently expressed serious doubt about the chances of it developing a successor to the PS Vita during EGX last month. Whatever the future may hold for its current handheld, it’s not looking any better.