Sony Vita: Second Chance at Success

The Sony Vita is a technologically impressive handheld, with its beautiful OLED screen and PS3 quality graphics, but unfortunately the sales just haven’t reflected the potential of Sony’s latest handheld.

Industry experts believe that a number of factors have influenced the less than stellar sales of the device, with the growth in smartphone and tablet gaming being a major issue. Coupled with consumer disinterest, expensive proprietary memory cards and only a handful of dedicated Vita must-have games, it’s no surprise that many gamers have relegated the Vita to the wastelands of gaming hardware failures.

But things have started to turn around for the Sony Vita, starting with the early 2013 reveal of the Sony Playstation 4, followed by the announcement of some exciting games that are coming soon for the handheld.

The days of walking into a brick and mortar gaming store to find earphones and all the other devices you need may be numbered. Although accessories like gaming headset or headphones among others are still definitely needed, some things in gaming might gradually change as the industry is pushing for a digital marketplace, where gamers download games to their device. The Vita embraces this concept by being closely tied to Sony’s Playstation online network.

Users who sign up for the Sony PS+ service are given free games each month which can be downloaded and stored on the device. This can be a very affordable way to quickly grow an impressive Vita game library, and many early adapters of the system list this as one of the best features of owning a Playstation Vita console.

As mentioned earlier, things started to turn around for the Vita at the reveal of Sony’s next home console – the Playstation 4. Reps for Sony announced that the Vita will link effortlessly to the PS4 to provide remote play, similar to the feature offered by Nintendo’s WiiU and gamepad controller.

This feature is rumoured to also work over internet connections, which means that a Vita owner could hypothetically log into their PS4 remotely from anywhere with a fast internet connection and play their PS4 games on the Vita screen. This is a game-changer, and many Vita consoles have been sold based on this future feature.

When is the Best Time to Buy a Vita?

We recommend holding off on a Vita purchase until Sony have a firm release date for the PS4 console. This is because there may be a hardware revision or price-drop to lure consumers into buying the PS4 friendly handheld.