Is the Vita dead? To Sony it is

After a very disappointing E3 showing, it seems things just keep getting worse for the poor Vita.

In an interview with Polygon, Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida stated that the company is moving away from first party games. Instead, the Vita platform will focus on third party titles, indie games, and streaming.

“It’s very fortunate that the indie boom happened, and they are providing lots of great content to Vita. Gameplay, game-mechanic wise, people want to spend 10 minutes, 15 minutes getting in and out. … Instead of watching big stories or cinematics, you can spend hours on Vita,” he said.

Our critique of the Vita a few weeks back focused on how the system already has the wrong kinds of games for a handheld. Specifically focusing on the poor quality or convoluted nature of Sony’s own first party titles. They seem to realize that games with a big scope don’t really belong on handheld systems. Yet they’re offering up very few alternatives.

An example of the kind of Vita games you can enjoy in the future. Maybe that’s your thing, I’m not here to judge.

Hedging their bets on indie games and PlayStation Now streaming could bring more problems to the system. While there have been some very, very good independent games released over the last few years, they lack the draw of bigger budget titles. Also, most of them are cross platform, with opportunities to play them on much better systems. The concept of being able to take your games with you isn’t a selling point for handhelds anymore. As for streaming, all points indicate that PlayStation Now performs poorly over WiFi.

At this point, it seems the Vita is doomed to the status quo. Not exactly the news we wanted.