Shuhei Yoshida Reveals Why PS Vita Did Not Succeed as Focus Was Split on PS4 Development

Ex-PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida reveals PS Vita failed due to split focus on PS4 development, costly memory cards, and removed features.

[Goodguy01]

That and for some reason they were just hoping for sales with little support of advertising and games. The 3DS also dominated the dedicated handheld market. This was also when smartphones and mobile games absolutely took over the world so a vita didn't make much sense to people. Would've been great if they just named it the PSP2 as well.

A very good number of factors played in it

[Cacabunga]

…because Sony never bothered.
Yes it got some quality software like Wipeout 2048. LBP, uncharted, gravity, Tearaway, kill zone and some cross buy titles but they just dropped the ball way too quick.

[porkChop]

Yup. It's difficult to justify supporting a platform when the manufacturer doesn't even support it. Most of the 1st party titles were also made by B teams rather than the main studios. Sony clearly went into launch assuming it would sell based on the PS name, but that's just not how it works.

[VenomUK]

I like that Shuhei is talking so much!

[XiNatsuDragnel]

I would love a ps vita schematics with switch features fr

[Neonridr]

split? Sony abandoned support of it. Coupled with the ridiculously expensive memory cards and it was not exactly set up for success.

[isarai]

Let's be real. The biggest issue was the cost, especially for the proprietary memory card

[Puty]

Yes. Console itself was priced reasonable, which people liked. Eye watering Cards prices and lack of software killed this overall cool device.

[gamerz]

And like he says in the interview, removing video out sealed its fate. I have the dock for the psp go an its much more useful. Always thought they removed video out because they were scared of losing sales on PS4 games.

[IanTH]

I'm curious as to the overall cost savings it offered. I think if I was there at the time trying to determine tradeoffs, that might have been one I'd cut if it meant keeping something like the OLED screen or improved internals.

I have both a PSP 3000 and a Vita TV, and being able to play my handheld library on the big screen (without emulation) is a really cool feature. But I'll also say that the output can be pretty rough, especially on larger (and higher res screens) where it can struggle to scale cleanly.

I think the memory card is really the easiest thing to point a finger at. Even waiting for the right time, a 32 GB Vita card cost me $83 - insanity. Ultimately, it made the whole experience more expensive, since you needed a decent sized one even if for nothing other than updates/patches for your physical games. And juggling multiple cards was a hassle (homescreen changes, required reset, etc). So not only creating a higher all-in cost, but they effectively punished you for buying more games. It was just monumentally stupid.

[Eidolon]

Modding community helped pushed some sales too I'm sure, but sadly not enough. SD2Vita was like 2016, with which you can use SD cards on the disc slot with the adapter.

[MasterChief3624]

I think it would have failed regardless of the PS4 focus. Which sucks, because the Vita was a wonderful little handheld. It just had some major issues like the aforementioned expensive proprietary memory cards. The 3DS was my preference, but I loved my little-Vita-that-could.

[kayoss]

This is why I love the PlayStation portal remote. Instead of Sony focusing on making games specifically for this system. Players can play games that are released on the ps5 and PSN. No need to worry about memory cards.

[Inverno]

They were released a year apart so Yea it should be obvious by now. Still a shame cause the thing was an amazing little device. The age of traditional handhelds is over, and I know the Switch exists but I don't consider it a traditional handheld. Now you can just play TV plug and play console games on the Switch or buy a handheld PC. That's cool and all but there's something about hardware intended for handhelds that you know are going to have a more cater experience around that hardware that made these devices that much more cool.

[Puty]

Shu, I love you, but let's not rewrite history here. I am still loving my Vita, so do not tarnish memory of her x/

[TheColbertinator]

Sony's ignorance of the Vita and their failure to support reminds me daily why I always hate Sony, anybody who works there and their families.

[P_Bomb]

But what about their pets? 🫣

[Elda]

For someone that hates Sony you love entering Sony articles to comment, it's your negative obsession.

[adamwparker]

Well, in the end it was good for Sony.

Sure, it sucked to see VITA not prosper beyond, but Nintendo was already on their way to conquer the handheld market making their primary hardware mobile. Most would already say Nintendo was the mobile king already having the DS line & Pikemon.

Winning that PS4/XBox One console generation was the most important generation ever. It was the digital generation, where people created ecosystems (like with apple/android phones).
Once you start creating digital libraries that would exist beyond the console life cycle, it is hard to flip back and forth consoles.

Sony made huge console sales with PS4 (lots of help from great 1st party titles) and Microsoft had some blunder out of the gates with kinect inclusion, always online stuff, and of course coming out slightly later than Playstation.

I had an xbox and also an xbox 360, but when the following gen came out, my wife surprised me with a PS4 instead of an xbox one because the store clerk recommended it(my wife didn't know gaming history mumbo jumbo).

I thoroughly enjoyed my PS4 and spent lots of money on it's digital library. Because of that and backwards compatibility, the PS5 was a no-brainer for me, as will be the PS6 & PS7.

I'm sure many others console gamers fell into this same boat as me. The PC gamers had it great with specs and mods and great games, but for those of us on console only, PS4 was many of ours last flipflop on console companies.

Sony won that most important console generation, so VITA is probably fine in their rear view mirror.

[Elda]

If they couldn't support both consoles then they shouldn't have released the Vita.

[vTuro24]

He for the most part basically just confirmed what we already knew. It's pretty sad, because the hardware was great.

[XBManiac]

It is great for emulation... in 2025.

[Eidolon]

I am still using mine for emulation and backlog of games. It's battery is still pretty good for being 12 years old, and I bought it used..

[jznrpg]

First party support was the biggest issue and proprietary memory cards sucked too. Love the Vita but it didn’t have enough bigger named games to get the mainstream to latch on.

[neomahi]

I thought it was the:

Price of Memory Cards
AT&T 3G Support instead of carrier of choice
No real first-party support. First-party devs showed no interest in it except Bend, who put a lot of effort into the PSP so it made sense but, yeah, everyone else just ignored it.

And what's with Freedom Wars being ported to Switch???

[Profchaos]

I can see this it's what it felt like at the time. I didn't buy a vita at launch in all honesty despite being a day 1 PSP owner and having a 2 hour commute there just wasn't enough on the system for me to be interested I was holding out for a big GTA style game that never came.

Eventually I jumped in when remote play was announced and I used it quite a bit initially but the novelty wore off soon after and it was only really good for slower paced games like navel combat in black flag.

But after a while with the vita I genuinely loved it and still use it to this day I've hacked it and it's now my retro system for trips

[RiseNShine]

An amazing handheld that it's great even today, it has thousands of amazing games and it can be hacked to run every kind of homebrew apps nowadays.