Sony’s Not Optimistic About a PlayStation Vita Successor Because of Smartphone Gaming
Naming it "Vita" doesn't seem to have helped a whole lot.
Sony’s portable game consoles may never have unseated Nintendo’s dominance in the portable gaming world, but the big N is ruling a dying kingdom anyway, as far as Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida is concerned; There may not even be a PS Vita successor.
In a Q&A at the UK’s EGX 2015 gaming convention over the weekend, Yoshida was asked about Sony’s plans for a future portable gaming device, and he didn’t seem convinced it was a good idea. Eurogamer reports that he answered,
That’s a tough question. People have mobile phones and it’s so easy to play games on smartphones, and many games on smartphones are free, or free to start. I myself am a huge fan of PlayStation Vita and we worked really hard on designing every aspect. Touch-based games are fun—there are many games with really good design. But having sticks and buttons make things totally different.
But as much as a real portable console offers advantage over touch- and accelerometer-based gameplay on mobile devices, the common wisdom that smartphones pose a problem to dedicated portable gaming devices was echoed: “So I hope, like many of you, that this culture of playing portable games continues but the climate is not healthy for now because of the huge dominance of mobile gaming.”
That’s far from direct confirmation that there won’t be a PlayStation Vita 2, but it sounds pretty unlikely with sales lagging and predictions of smartphones mobile gaming dominance coming true. Mark this down as yet another sign that the world of video games is in for some huge changes over the coming years as dedicated gaming devices continue to lose their appeal.
(via Geek.com)
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