PlayStation Vita

Sony unveiled the PSP's successor on January 27, 2011, at the PlayStation Meeting in Japan under the codename NGP, with Mark Cerny as lead architect. The aim was to blend the console experience with mobile devices: a 5-inch OLED touchscreen, a rear touchpad, two analog sticks, two cameras, and Wi-Fi or 3G versions. Sony dropped the UMD disc in favor of small 2 GB or 4 GB game cards. At E3 in June 2011 it named the device PlayStation Vita, as vita is Latin for life.

It launched in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in the Americas and Europe on February 22, 2012, at $249 or €249 for Wi-Fi and 299 for 3G. Launch titles included Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Wipeout 2048, and critics praised its design and controls. Sales soon stalled, however, and the price of its proprietary memory cards and the thin library drew heavy criticism. Ubisoft and Activision scaled back support, and Monster Hunter, key to the PSP's success, moved to the Nintendo 3DS.

Sony changed course. Shahid Ahmad courted independent studios, bringing games such as Fez, Spelunky and Hotline Miami, while Japanese publishers kept up a stream of JRPGs and visual novels such as Persona 4 Golden, Danganronpa and Atelier. In August 2013 Sony cut the price to $199 and introduced the PCH-2000 model. After the PS4 arrived that November, it promoted the Vita as a companion for Remote Play, and in 2015 it said it would stop making first-party games for it.

The launch of the Nintendo Switch in March 2017 overshadowed it further. On September 20, 2018, Sony announced its discontinuation, and production ended on March 1, 2019. It is regarded as a commercial failure, far behind the Nintendo 3DS, though it did reasonably well in Japan and kept a loyal following in the West. Sony released no successor; in 2023 it launched the PlayStation Portal, a remote play accessory for the PS5. In July 2026 it announced that the Vita's digital store will close for good in July 2027.