Between this and today's announcement of Spotify coming to Sony platforms (with the Vita nowhere in sight in the announcement where it possibly makes the most sense as it's a portable device) are we nearing the end of the line for the Vita already?

PlayStation Vita is just getting used to the the new office. Give it a couple on months, and I'm sure they'll up with something. I wouldn't worry about it.

I already have a phone for Youtube, Maps and Spotify. The Vita just needs to play games.

I didn't really know there were apps on the Vita. I mean it makes sense, and even the 3DS has YouTube and Netflix and others, but I just never even consider those solutions.

Maps is terrible on the 3G vita. I did use youtube a lot though.

beginning of the end for vita? nah too early to call that, i never used those things they are canceling.

It's probably a case where the license is ending soon and they looked at the data and realize nobody (read: not enough people) is using those apps.

A bit odd they'd drop Youtube. Seems like if any apps on Vita got usage, that'd be one of them. Must be trying to cut costs or something, but still.

Well shit, this news is so severe and shocking that the end of the Vita is the least of my concerns. I am worried for my very life. Is this the end of days?

Two apps are being dropped.

OH MY GOD THE VITA IS ENDING IT'S DOOMED IT'S ALL OVER R.I.P.

I never used any of that stuff anyway.

Do vita games still come out?

I know indie games come out on it, but i can play those on an Xbox PS or PC. What was the last big Vita game that came out? Asking this because i haven't seen any news about the Vita in a while am wondering if non indie games come out on this thing anymore.

@zombie2011: Sony and most major third parties have pretty much given up putting anything noteworthy on it. Pretty much the biggest games (as in, non indie) its getting now are niche Japanese titles from companies like Bandai Namco and Idea Factory.

That Spotify annoucement is cool, it needs to go on Xbox too

I think it's just more of an acknowledgement that no one uses those apps on vita, so it doesn't make sense to support them any longer. Now, I know there's the edgecase person who uses their Maps app on their Vita to navigate while driving, but I'm talking about big picture. I don't know a single person who has a vita and uses, like, the email client on it. It makes sense to drop support for apps that cost Sony money to maintain support for. Divert that cash to better support games. They've been trying to make the Vita a leaner, more focused offering for a while now, this is probably just another step in that direction.

With maps, and therefore Near, being taken out I was worried my games that have location data support would also lose functionality*. According to the playstation support website, games with location support will still work once this is gone though so it doesn't seem to affect me.

*Really it's just one pesky Smart As... trophy that I'm worried about.

Losing the near Game Gift or whatever functionality is kind of a bummer, but really, that's the only thing lost by the app drop for the majority of users, I feel. I doubt it's coincidental that both of the apps getting discontinued are Google applications, given that apparently Google is deprecating an OAuth API soon too. We'll never know, but it's likely that either Google or Sony on Google's behalf said "these aren't worth the reimplementation effort". Which is probably honest.

And Spotify? I dunno, this may just be me, but my Vita feels like the lowest priority for media apps. I get that others disagree, but personally, I've never felt any of those apps, and I'd definitely want support for that kind of thing on my PS4 and PS3 first.

This being the end of the Vita rates about a 1/10 on the crazy speculation scale.

Seriously, who is watching youtube videos on their Vita though. These apps don't need to be every single device known to man.

Dammit, I actually use the Youtube app on Vita very frequently. It keeps track of my subscriptions and gives me a nice image quality that's way better than my little iPhone 4S. Sometimes it's nice to watch crap on there when I'm trying to fall asleep at night.

As long as they don't drop support for Persona 4 Golden and Spelunky i'm good

@galacticpunt: You will still be able to watch YouTube videos through the Vita browser.

Vita was my first OLED device that could run YouTube as well. Watched whole endurance runs and quick looks on. Such a shame.

But I only have about a million other places I can do that stuff!! I dunno ... I've had a Vita since launch and frankly I wish I could delete all of the required apps except the settings and the PSN. The rest is useless... Email and maps on my Vita? Never touched them.

@bsstephan: I'll give that a test drive. It's been an OK experience watching... other types of videos on that browser. *shifty eyes*

I don't care about Apps

But I was in a Gamestop this week, and looking at where they had the Vita merchandised (on a tiny endcap facing the very back wall with no Point of Purchase material letting you know it was there) was not a good sign.

The Vita isn't being advertised but the Playstation TV is.

@nictel said:

(read: maybe literally nobody)

@turtlebird95 said:

Yeah, it's kinda crazy how much the Vita is suffering from exactly the same issues as the PSP. Except at least the PSP had pretty baller support from Japanese devs who never gave up that PS2 dream and just wanted to keep making RPGs with PS2 graphics for the rest of their career. At least it had that going for it.

The Vita has some element of Japanese dev support, but it isn't anywhere near the PSP, because I imagine a lot of those devs have just just moved onto mobile game development, because CASH MONEY. And yeah, just like with the PSP, Sony has made its first-party attempts at supporting the platform, but it turns out those don't really sell well enough to justify the time and effort put into them. Sorry, Killzone: Whatever and Uncharted: The Golden Thinger. And then third party Western devs could barely be bothered to try, between Call of Duty: We Don't Even Care, and Borderlands 2: Why, Iron Galaxy, Why.

I guess I'm somewhat surprised that Sony even made a second handheld, after the really uneven success of the PSP, and then the whole thing where they lost the Monster Hunter license to Nintendo.

@bisonhero: NIS hasn't given up on the Vita and I love them for it.

@bisonhero: To me, the Vita feels like an "Us too!" kinda device where Sony didn't want to completely surrender the handheld scene to Nintendo but at the same time didn't want to invest a whole lot in making it successful.

I saw an interesting theory about why big publishers were so quick to abandon the platform (besides its failings to gain any traction sales-wise) that basically suggested the Vita was just too expensive to properly develop for, since portable games are usually cheaper more bite sized experiences. If the Vita had a 3DS level sales (or at least closer to it) that probably wouldn't be the case.

If Sony decides they're gonna try the handheld market again (which I doubt, but who knows. We're talking about a company who's bringing the Walkman back for $1200) I hope they focus more on the games and less about how powerful it is.

@turtlebird95: I don't know if I'd agree with it ever being the case for portables, but I wouldn't classify many 3DS and Vita games as "bite-sized". Unless you meant the Western publisher perception of those games, in which case maybe you're onto something. Indies suggest that the Vita isn't all that expensive to develop for, though it sounds like they do benefit from pretty good Vita sales in a lot of cases. What I will definitely agree on is that the Vita isn't a suitable platform (sales or not) for fat fat piggy AAA development budgets. I don't know if the platform ever would be, though.

I think the honest situation is the Vita's found its niches --- Japan (and the localization of those games to the West), indies, and drawing Sony customers deeper into PSN. The third niche is, as I see it, kind of a network effect --- customer buys a PS4 (their first Sony console in a while), gets PS+, starts buying some indies and getting free IGC games, then after a couple months says "huh, I have like a dozen games for this Vita thing, maybe I'll try it out for Remote Play". Then a couple months after that, says "I have this Vita thing, maybe I should check out this Persona 4 Golden". And so on, and now they're even deeper into PSN. I don't know how strong that effect is, but I've definitely seen it play out exactly that way, and I do suspect it exists. So, strategically, there is likely some element of the Vita, no matter what other niches/mainstreams it occupies, helping keep PSN retention, and that's valuable to Sony too, even if the "core Vita" is just a series of niches.

@bsstephan: I should have phrased that differently. I didn't mean "bite- sized" in the sense the games are small, but rather development for handhelds would typically be a lot lower in cost than their home console counterparts. Sony was making a big deal about how the Vita had PS3 graphics and whatnot, and I think a lot of the big third party publishers (western ones, anyway) didn't feel comfortable spending those kind development costs on games for a portable device where people usually don't spend more than $40 per game. I guess they just didn't see much of a return (if any) and decided to not bother with the platform, hence why there's so few big retail releases for it. (Funnily and kind of sadly it seems Sony has this same thought)

Again, that's not my theory, but I believe it sounds plausible.

@turtlebird95: Ah, gotcha. I do think you're right there --- big AAA spending on portables looks to be wholly unattractive, especially for games where that'd be another large effort to develop and debug alongside the other more conventional hardware. Again I think it comes back to the Vita finding niches where the lower cost is still justified by the market.

I feel if I owned one I'd just continue using it for games without worrying too much.

THIS is what's got you worried about the end of the Vita?

Like everyone else has said, game support on the device is pathetic. It's basically become an indie machine, but when people can get those games everywhere else, that's not appealing. The vita's problems are twofold:

1) No one's making actual Vita games anymore. It's either downports of PS3/4 games or indie titles. Last game I can remember giving a crap about for the Vita was Killzone: Mercenary, and that was, what, mid-2013?

2) Even less of those games are getting physical releases. When someone walks into a GameStop (or worse, a big-box store) and sees this microscopic selection of games on shelf, it's going to leave a bad first impression, especially compared to the juggernaut 3DS. Not only that, but why the hell are the Vita sections in stores always in out-of-the-way places to begin with? Because there's not really anything to show! Game stores aren't going to give highly visible retail space to Akiba's Trip.

Basically, the Vita ended a long time ago as anything people should give a crap about. It's a PS4 accessory now, and an underused one at that.

In some weird way, what the Vita has become is more interesting than what it was set out to be. As basically a second screen for my PS3/4, a way to play some old games, or take indie stuff with me. I don't know, I've thought more about buying one recently than I have in a long time. Maybe if they drop the price I'll bite, I suspect that's incoming anyway, right? Having years worth of PS+ back catalog doesn't hurt here.

My assumption is a NEW YouTube app for PS4 and Vita will show up in the next round of updates....but who knows.

Vita users can still access it via the Browser anyways.