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noshten on 19 July 2021
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Agente42 said:
Farsala said:

During the PS4 transition in 2014 the charts were dominated by PS3/PSV games. PS4 had better SW numbers due to publishers not trusting the PSV to be successful, so they went with 3 or 2 platforms, but PS4 had terrible HW numbers. PSV finally hit it's stride in Japan in 2014. The loss of Sony's handheld division is playing out now with the PS5.

Sony makes a good choice, ditched the PSvita and laser focus on Ps4. Without this, maybe Ps4 it's not so successful.

But the portable scene, A and AA  Japanese production, now is migrated for Nintendo Switch, slowly, you can see this now.  

Nintendo Switch reunites de 3ds, Wiiu, Psvita pipeline in one videogame. 

It's not only the abandoned Portables it's their investment into VR which in the current format was always doomed to be a niche product in Japan. 

If the same investment was made into the Vita they could have probably prolonged its life in Japan, maybe retaining exclusivity for some AA games. The only Sony-published game on the Vita after 2014 was Minecraft. They published around 30 games on PSVR between 2016-2019 WW, which means at least a decent investment from their end outside of the hardware R&D. For comparison on the PSVita according to Gameslibrary has 25 games that SCE published. 

I understand that Sony probably felt that VR better aligns with their media strategy, but it's basically what I felt replaced their portable gaming line and wasn't even as successful as the Vita, let alone well aligned to their third-party partners in Japan. This is why in the near future we might see smaller devs completely forsake PS5 versions of their games, simply put since 2015 Sony's strategy is in a different direction - the fact that they disbanded Sony Japan also probably cost them a bunch of relationships build and fostered over the years.