PS Vita's All-Time US Best-Sellers Show Why Sony Binned System

Still love my vita. Muv Luvin it up right now.

Wow. And Americans constantly say that people in the UK have poor taste in games. It's true, but apparently not limited to here.

Vita's a really nice little console but with numbers like that no company's gonna pump resources into it. It's a sad story but it's business, unfortunately.

I didn't dislike the Vita, but I felt like there were few games I could play for very long without my hands cramping up bad.

Remote play was an awesome feature though. It was cool to be able to play Borderlands online with my friends while I was across town from my PS4 (which was the machine actually running the game).

My psvita is my portable psone and psp system, playing castlevania sotn or other psone games on it is nicer than playing the games on 55 4k tv.

What gets me about this list is - not a single game on it broke even 500,000 units. That's not a good look for any platform, especially when commercial failures like the Wii U managed to push a couple of million-sellers. I have to wonder how many PS Vitas Sony actually managed to sell in the US, because I'd be surprised if they managed to break 1 million sales.

Sony got lazy, not enough marketing and neither did they release enough smaller or AAA games.

the vita is my go to handheld if i'm out someplace for long periods of time, i also love the 3ds too.

i still love my Vita and have had LOADS of great games to play on it so i'm happy and if i had the chance i would buy it all over again

A real shame. I definitely got my money's worth though, a lot of excellent games on the Vita. Must be very difficult competing with the mobile phone market AND Nintendo.

It’s sad about what happened with Vita, everyone I know who has the device really loves it.
I wonder if games like Freedom Wars and Soul Sacrifice will be released on PS4.
I’m a huge fan of Gravity Rush series and Tearaway, I played these games on PS4.

I played/owned 9/10 on the list. Ps vita is still my most played console. I also own ps4/switch.
Currently loving rainbow skies.
I be playing well into 2020 with my backlog.

That's a really sad list tbh. I still play my vita most days. Its genuinely my favourite console ever because of what its offered me over the years, and ensuring that i can play playstation on the move.

The list is so poor because it says very little about the truly wonderful library that the console has amassed over the past few years. I will still be playing for years to come.

I do think Sony made mistakes, but beyond that, as a business, its hard to argue against them dropping it so quickly (2 or so years for big 1st party releases was poor mind). The 3rd parties, particularly indie devs have been incredible at continuing to support the system. And by all accounts it has been quite profitable to do so. At least until switch came along.

For me vita has been the best handheld ever made

The underwhelming library certainly didn't help. My Vita has basically been a Danganronpa machine for the last few years.

Thankfully, we now have the Switch, which is carrying the legacies of both the Vita and the Wii U into the future.

@Rob_230 great comments. I feel then same.

You all sound like me about my Wii U.

However, apart from P4G, nothing on Vita would tempt me to ever buy one.

I have really liked my Vita over the years. There has been plenty of titles on that are worth playing, some of them excellent. I wonder what the sales comparison would be of the PS4 ports of original Vita games on the PS4 vs on the Vita (Danganronpa 1/2, Gravity Rush, Tearaway, Zero Escape games, soon to be Trails of Cold Steel, AC Liberation, etc ...) That would say a lot about whether it was the games or just a lack of interest in the handheld device.

2020: PS5
2022: PSVR2
2023: PS5 Pro
2025: PS5 Portable

Believe.

I wonder how many of those who complained about memory card prices have since bought one or more £600 phones on which to play mostly inferior games? 🤔

@brendon987 #vitaisland #vitameanslife

If all those (or 9 anyway) couldn't match 1 month of Spider-Man, then that surely says why the games dropped off.Why would devs keep spending lots of money developing 'big' titles for the Vita when the return wasn't there.

It may well have cult interest amongst Sony fans but the finances have to balance. When it launched, the handheld was more expensive than a PS3 and the costs of games, memory cards etc. Portable gaming also had Nintendo and Mobiles/tablets too were offering gaming on the go. You could argue the same about the Switch too of course but that has the added bonus of being Nintendo's next 'home' console too where as the Vita was competing with the PS3 and then the PS4 - not directly but in the market place - like I said, you could buy a PS3 cheaper and still have money left for the latest games...

@crazykcarter WiiU owners were also burned but Ninty managed to turn things around. Sony had the chance to advertise the psvita during the Superbowl, but chose not to.
The vita didn't fail because the market didn't want it, but because Sony failed at making the market want it. As soon as something is perceived as a cool item to have, people buy anything in droves. It's one of the reasons ps4 has done so much better than the xb1.

@naruball makes no difference since the vita is still the best handheld ever made (speaking of the hardware itself, not necessarily the vita software lineup). i would choose that over a switch any day.

@get2sammyb well looks like they threw in the towel after 12 months

I would have thought Batman would have made the list

Gravity Rush isnt in the top ten? No wonder the sequel got shifted to PS4.

I bought my vita in 2014 about a month after buying a ps4 (april or may)
Only bought about 2 physical games back than (gow collection and mk9)
Bought 5 more games in 2016 (4 lego games and lbp)
Bought 13 games this year, from which 3 last wednesday (tearaway, injustice and modnation racers) and 1 today (skullgirls 2nd encore from LRG, managed to find a sealed copy in a store)
I think I have over 100 digital games but I’m replacing all I can with physical cartridges.

The psvita is by far my favourite console, followed by the switch, than the ps3, ps2 and 3ds/ds taking the 5th place.

@Porco Not sure what you're trying to say, tbh. While I do agree that the vita was excellent hardware-wise, that's not enough for it to sell well. Not unless the public is convinced that it's worth their money and time.

@AdamNovice The 3ds started well, but its sales soon plummeted. Ninty cut its price significantly as soon as it did and from that point on it kept selling well. The vita didn't get a price cut soon enough and by the time it did, most who were on the fence had lost interest in it because it had already become the butt of the joke. Sony didn't act fast enough.

@crazykcarter Sony knew the vita wasn't going to sell well from pre-orders and when it was beat by 3ds even on its launch day in Japan (that was pretty embarrassing). By the time it was released in the west, the lovely journalists had made sure everyone considered it a joke. So even with ps4 not doing well, they'd see little reason to support it.
The 3ds sold well almost its entirely lifetime. The only exception was a few (4?) months after it launched. It soon had a price cut and then it took off.
They are both perfect examples of the snowball effect.

Bought a vita last year and I love it. Still downloading and buying games that are great. My view of it is that Sony is a nuisance. Sure they designed a great hand held, but they were greedy and made failure into a business model. If Nintendo made the vita I believe it would still be going great, albeit with different games. We bought a ps4 recently too, and now Sony are moving on. Honestly like playing video games from time to time but it is tiring that we have to have these new consoles, slim consoles and pro consoles when it seems to me that all we really need are good games. The vita has great games. Ps2 had great games. The snes had great games.
I can't be bothered buying any more of them now. Especially from sony. The vita will be the last of it for me.

I own 100+ Vita games, and three of these.

I'm sorry but personally I feel it's the best handheld ever seeing how I can play my PS4 from anywhere. I don't even care about vita games.

I would have bought a lot more digital games from sales if I had more storage, but upgrading to anything above my current 8GB makes me consider just buying a game for my other systems instead.

@naruball i'm saying that regardless of how average the vita software library is, it is quite the powerhouse when you consider that it is fully backwards compatible with the ps1 and psp library. doesn't that make up for its flaws? sales really don't matter to me since i got it primarily for the ps1 games — they look excellent on the oled display. it will forever be the best handheld in my eyes, unless nintendo can improve upon the switch and make it smaller and more portable. 3ds is great as well, especially due to the backwards compatibility with the ds library, but the lack of a second analogue stick and very poor display/resolution, leaves a lot to be desired by comparison.

I enjoyed many hours of playing jrpgs and dungeon crawlers on my vita. There was definitely a market for handhelds as shown by the popularity of the 3ds but the lack of advertising, no vita games on store shelves (I seriously couldn’t find a physical store other than gamestop that sold new games for it for the last few years, this would affect sales of the console), a pricey memory card, and a lack of games that weren't jrpgs or dungeon crawlers were the problem. It’s a shame because it was a wonderful system.

I love the Vita and the past year, it is the console I most invested in! I bought a secon slim (aqua blue) to go with my OLED 1st iteration. Bought my daughter the neon orange (you have pictured). I have so many digital PSP and PSOne and Vita games that I could play for years after it’s stop releasing games. I’m still actively buying physical release (I have over 50 and counting). Only the other day I placed pre order for gundemonium (however it’s spelled) for PS Vita instead of PS4 from Strictly limited. In a way the fact it is so niche has a certain kind of appeal to a collector like me.

I know it will stop soon but for me, it remains an exciting console. Right now in between console gaming on PS4, I’m going through axiom verge in vita. Next game, I intend to finish is Velocity 2x, followed by Bunny Must Die, Demon Gaze II, Dungeon Travellers 2, Super Hydorah, Undertale (all physical games)....I could go on

While I agree with the general tone of the article, i.e. Its a catch 22 situation ; people like blaming Sony for lack of support but if the games dont sale wth?
However no digital data for a handheld makes this article a bit pointless.

@Kwiji
Your saying 'if Nintendo made the vita I believe it would still be going great,' and then you complain about new hardware.
Tbh I think if Vita was Nintendo youd be playing on a New Vita XL right now haha

Laughing! True, but I believe Nintendo are doing more to support their game systems.

Besides, I'm nearly 40 years old now. That makes me old and I don't have to make sense when I'm complaining. Damn fool kids.

@get2sammyb more likely pushed of the cliff by sony. actually caused my local game shop to go under the money they lost on the vita

I have 200+ Vita games and only 3 are on this list. I still use the Vita every week and my son uses it for remote play (at his house).

They should have bundled it with every PS4 and pushed remote play.

I still think it was marketing and memory cards that did it. How are the games gonna sell if Sony doesn't market them? The only commercial I ever saw about the Vita was a Black Ops commercial.

I own both the 3ds and the Vita since both have some incredible games. I would argue that for every great 3ds game there's one that's just as good, if not better, on the Vita.

In fact, in a few genres the Vita has more games and that are also better. Rhythm games come to mind as this is one of my favorite genres. The 3ds had almost nothing, while the Vita killed it.

I currently have 40 Vita games (that's excluding PS+ and a few freemiums), and only four of those are on the list. And what time is a portable console "the wrong product" for? IIRC 2009-2012 period catches my ownership of both my first touchscreen smartphone (Nokia 5230) and my first Android smartphone (Galaxy S+), so back then I already had the practical experience and evidence to laugh at the notion that mobile gaming could ever replace handheld one. Did western and Japanese gamers have iOSdroids with actual buttons at the time? If not, then we might as well say that Vita wasn't competing with mobile gaming, it was just competing with the growing freemium tsunami of experiences that had successfully sailed over from DS days yet were offered on devices everyone was getting and carrying around anyway.

And yet, even 3DS has pulled through that challenge; was Vita hardware not equipped to, despite its slick design and mobile architecture and ability to handle casual games and freemiums just as well, but alongside big lengthy games (which benefited not only from sleep mode but also the console's impressive ability to save-state the running game and hibernate when out of battery)? There were even "obligatory" browsers and YouTubes and party chats, and cameras, and location-based playtimes like Treasure Park... you name it. So is it really the market climate that went wrong, or was it still Sony progressively losing interest for its ultimately wonderful portable output after it became clear they couldn't beat Nintendo anyway and still had the next home console to market and sell better than several years of PS3's relative misadventures?

Portables have had some of Sony's own most imaginative gaming experiences in history; at least two of them were born on Vita but neither is in this Top 10 anyway. Heck, even FFX/X-2 isn't.

Even now, I can scan the list of games for the Vita and can say other than Uncharted, there is nothing I'd be remotely interested in. No RPGs, racing, sports... Nada

@JoeBlogs I agree about smartphones lowering the sales and that the 3ds wasn’t as successful as Nintendo’s past handhelds. However, the 3ds sold about 73 million units compared to the vitas 15 million. So there was enough of a handheld market for Sony to achieve higher numbers if they had done many things differently.

"it was just the wrong product for the time"

While I totally agree with that statement I don't think you can say that's 100% the reason Vita failed.

I mean 3DS existed at the same time and sold very well. Sony have to take some blame as they didn't handle the console very well imo and yes better priced memory cards would have helped overall...

This doesn’t include digital sales =/. Makes it a pointless list.

I loved the system but now people know why they ported games to the PS4.

@Porco Yeah, I couldn't agree more with all that. I still think the psvita library is actually great, but those ps1 and psp games sure look good on it.

@Dodoo But the 3ds was bound to sell well because all (apart from one which shall not named) Ninty handhelds did. It had Pokemon. That alone was enough reason to sell millions.

Sony couldn't just come up with such a successful franchise no matter how hard they tried. What they could have done was to secure exclusivity on Monster Hunter which Ninty did. That alone sealed its fate in Japan.

@get2sammyb Pretty ignorant thing to say, Sammy.

For your information even single player games (including two Sony first party games) have received Super Bowl ads. The Switch got one as well and I'm pretty sure Ninty didn't go bankrupt (Sony didn't either). Is a simple google search too much to ask?

@invaderyoyo Too be fair never saw a 3DS commercial ever. 😉

@naruball Ninty didnt make develop it was Game Freak the Pokemon franchise. 😁

They published it. 😃

@naruball True but don't forget the 3DS didn't sell well to begin with either.

It wasn't until Nintendo dropped the price and made other changes that turned its fortune. Sony didn't do anything like that, they didn't even drop the price of their proprietary SD cards which were inflated by about 100% price-wise.

I agree Pokemon etc are strong brands but Sony has strong brands and very skilled dev teams too. In my opinion Sony had just as much capital, developers, marketers, logistics, global reach etc as Nintendo but failed.

Market conditions were far from ideal but they both operated in the same market and can only blame themselves. To me it felt like their handheld business wasn't taken 100% seriously like their home console business.

Just glad they did a much better job with the PS4!

@Flaming_Kaiser
You're technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

@Dodoo Well, they did release an Uncharted game (their biggest franchise at the time) on the vita on day 1 (they did the same with several other 1st party franchises, including LBP which was arguably better than the first 2 games). But most Sony 1st party games suit home consoles better. Even God of War struggled to sell on psp. Unfortunately, nothing could come close to Pokemon.

As for not doing enough, yup, we can all agree on that.

I agree that the handheld market is gone sadly. I would still like Sony to release a remote play handheld as an accessory for the PS4 or eventually the PS5, perhaps with ps now support. I enjoyed the remote play feature on my vita and feel it could still be viable to consumers.

I bought a new 3ds recently. I'm loving it so far. Vita is much more powerful, but with that expensive memory cards (even more here in Argentina) and lack of catalog, I went for the 3ds all the way.

I think calling it Vita was a stupid idea! All it did was create a lot of awkward conversations when you had to explain it was the PSP 2 - which it should have been called!
The memory card prices were (and still are!) astronomical so that combined with the name and Sony's complete lack of advertising/publishing for it killed it before it had time to establish itself.
We lost a lot of interesting titles along the way from PS3 to PS4 transition - I'm thinking of games like Ruin/Warrior's Lair which would have been a big seller but Sony were too busy hammering the nails into the PS3's coffin and therefore condemning the Vita to an early failure.

Vita means life and it was dead on arrival. I still have a fondness for it. I have convinced my wife that a switch is essential to my continued happiness. I suspect 90% of my play will be in handheld mode.

I remember going to buy my son a Vita around 2 months after it launched and our massive local Tesco game section staff didn't know what it was and there was zero advertising or products in the store Vita-Wise. I hurried to Asda and found 1 Vita with Uncharted laying discarded under the counter, again the staff didn't know what it was... hardly the best start for any console.
We loved it though, great little thing.