This pretty muh sums it up.

Vita hasn't sold well enough to justify continued AAA titles, that's why they're not pouring money into it. However the systems are sold at a profit, they have PS+ subscriptions from it and there is plenty of lower key and Japanese 3rd party software being pumped out all bringing in royalties. It also makes a companion to PS4.

Discontinuing Vita would actually be a foolish move. Keeping it as a low key money generator both prevents the current audience (who aren't whining on here at how bored they got with their Vita, because to be quite frank, most active Vita owners are very happy with their purchase and clearly continuing to buy software for it) and also helps them put more investment into AAA content on PS4.

It'd be nice if Sony would throw us a bone, but a high dev budget Vita title is unlikely to even break even. Discontinuing it damages the brand, and would actually reduce SCEI's profitability.

The logic from a lot of posters in this thread is just baffling. Nintendo discontinuing the Wii U now would make more sense than Sony discontinuing the Vita and that would also be foolish.

Wait a min there, Sony is supporting the playstation Vita...in Asia! The west , ie: the majority of the playstation gamers and many gamers all pretty much stated, Vita just has watered down port machine, and those very same conplaints also say if I was going to play that oh' I would rather play that on the PS3 or now they say just port the game to the PS4. That is the "Majority" of gamers attitude of the playstation Vita, so sony has shifted that perception to be ok is if that is what the Majority of gamers see it that way. Than thats exactly what it will be in the West!

Many say well the playstation Tv will have the same problem as the Vita, what low sales more than it already . Has already? Lmao

By dropping the name "Vita" and just calling it playstation TV it will be the lowest entry price point of any brand new playstation living room console ever that Sony has launched.

The key point is its already at mass adoption price point. The playstation TV also allows multi-player of a ps4 game that has local multi-player co-op while someone is on the ps4 and the other player can play from a playstation Tv.

The point of entry for a brand new playstation that is where Sony is supporting the playstation vita , trying to fix the perception of the product , by re launching it.

And there's the thing.

Yes, but he asked why they don't discontinue it. I said it's because the userbase it has buys a lot of games. That's it.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that they can't discontinue it (not in an obvious way, anyway), because there would be a backlash. PSTV allows them to quietly abandon a handheld strategy while relying on the "platform" to supply the userbase with software, until such interest naturally subsides.

It's hardly surprising, though. This is the company that decided to gauge interest in the idea of the PSPGo by... just releasing the PSPGo. Nintendo is also learning a similarly hard lesson.

If I hear about some great Japanese games coming to PS4 in 2015, I may pick one up. PS3 is what I currently plan on buying because of all the PS3 exclusive games I missed out on as a 360 owner last gen, but if there are sufficient PS4 announcements at TGS that get localized, I might pick one of those up sooner than later.

What many keep harping on really are failing to take into account, this is really right now about the hard core gamers getting AAA games for the playstation vita, it is about making sure the playstation vita as a platform is still around so as to get those AAA games! People keep going on about where is the support from Sony, its there its more of perception of the product than its viability right now. Making a AAA game for the psvita is throwing good money after bad because in the west its already seen as a watered down port.

Sony rightly so shifted the resources of expanding the install base of the playstation vita to that of an entry level platform to harvesting more developments of smaller publishers to have a entry to the living room .

The point is Minecraft, and Disney are already getting 1st priority for playstation TV! That may not seem like much, but think about china. Sony has a system now that A: has Unity 3D fully compliant hardware , and a low entry price point, again all retail playstation Tv units can be used for development code to test and run! And free 2 play type games are already ok to run on the playstation tv and playstation vita! In  China free 2 play is a very big area of software investment on PC, and Sony is far from shy employing free 2 play gaming! Think about that in China local developers and publishers has a cheap cost entry point platform that is not a knock off product that directly supports the mass adopted free 2 play model at a low cost entry point.

To say Sony is just up and giving up on the playstation Vita, is pretty ironic for yet another playstation vita platform that ie: no one wants

Many may say for money grabing, but margins for mobile unless you are like samsung or Apple or like LG are razor thin. 

Cripes. I have no idea how you can appear to disagree with me when you are actually confirming what I have been writing so far. Maybe it's all the tangents.

In summary: Sony realise that their customers generally see handheld gaming as a second-class activity, but they have business relations and a public image to maintain, so they are reluctantly taking their handheld strategy to the convalescent home, instead of smothering it with a pillow.

As for "cheap cost entry level platforms", they have the PS3 for that.

The dev costs are offset by the revenue brought in through the release of new games. So although they are working on new games right now, Killzone and Infamous sales make enough money to cover those dev costs. Otherwise, according to your theory, the game division can never make profits until they stop making new games. 

Killzone has sold 2.1m copies, Knack has crossed 1m,  Infamous has also crossed 1m. I'm sure all those games are profitable. 

They tried giving the vita AAA exclusives, and studio Liverpool died because of it. Sony should stop with handhelds.