stength of sales of SONY CONSOLES are 3rd party. 1st party offerings are solid but 3rd party are the real meat

The Hungry Hoard was another 1st party exclusive that quietly released the other month. That was is actually a lot of fun in short bursts.

Lol, did you freaking miss the performance of the Vita? Let me give a little reality check here: the crushing majority of PS hardware sales are due to third party games, Sonys first party is a nice bonus for the core PS fans but most people buy these systems for their Fifas, Cods, GTAs and other big third party titles.

Some western third parties tried putting games on the Vita (probably after being enticed by Sony), but they simply don't anymore because the performance didn't happen and they don't want to be held back in their games by hardware that's weaker than the PS3. So knowing that, why should Sony waste their own resources on this and have people make games for it that won't push hardware and that have a significantly better potential on home console?

What do you think dropping a single Gow title on the Vita is going to do? Or a Patapon? Sonys first party could maybe muster to put like 4 games or so on the Vita a year, that would be a drop in the freaking ocean, do nothing for the Vita and just take away resources from the part of Sonys gaming business that actually has a future.

And Nintendo isn't left with much of a choice (a) even they realize that the handheld market is shrinking, that the 3DS is performing worse than any of their handhelds before and that as such putting all their eggs into that basket while abandoning the home console space is stupid (b) Nintendo knows that the only thing selling their hardware is their own software and they also know that even on a small installbase they can sell millions of units of some of their titles, so they have much more of a reason to try and support the Wii U ( c) all rumors are actually pointing to them in fact abandoning the Wii U early and apparently launching a new system next year, just look back at their E3 this year that certainly didn't scream full support (d) I'm pretty that we've established that Nintendo is quite out of touch at times, so they probably believed in a comeback for a lot longer.

Lets say your company have two products on the market and its competing against a far superior company. This is completely hypothetical, of course. One of your products has achieved effortless success thanks mostly to, let's say... gullible customers (again hypothetical). The other product, sadly, wasn't as lucky. You now need to put lots of cash on that unlucky product because otherwise you can't compete. After all your company can't carry its own weigh and need to rely on other companies. But those other companies are reluctant to carry your failing product for you. Well, some are trying, but is not enough. To make matters worse, your company is on the way to bankruptcy and you need to make sacrifices in other to survive. What do you do? Where do you focus your efforts?

Goodness, what an angry post!

I don't think the bolded isn't really true though.  If Vita didn't exist in that 2011-2012-2013 gap that it did, I think there's a fair chance the studios you listed would've been either closed or massively downsized.

I mean, PS4 wasn't a sure-fire success enough before it released to save Studio Liverpool; BigBig and Zipper Interactive from closing even though at least two of those studios had PS4 games in development.  I don't see why Guerilla Gambridge; Japan Studio and Sony Bend would've seen any different a fate.

They all produce these AA titles that aren't-quite-reaching-AAA (apart from arguably Japan Studio, who I think have it in them to make an AAA console game).  That's a market which they thought had the potential for success on Vita (sadly, they ballsed it up though) and it's a market that they'd increasingly had no interest from in consoles (see 2010-2012 Sony-published disappointments on PS3, i.e. MAG; Motorstorm Apocalypse; Resistance 3; SOCOM 4; LBP Karting; PlayStation All-Stars; Ratchet FFA: Starhawk; Twisted Metal etc.)

I think you can see how much these studios struggle to fit in on PS4 when looking at Sony Bend.  In December, it'll have been 4 years since they released Uncharted: Golden Abyss.  Since then they've released 1 thing - Uncharted: Fight for Fortune, the majority of the development of which was done by another company.  It's taken then 4 years to come up with something that would fit on a Sony home console?  Christ...

Perhaps the PS4 will be the saviour of all these studios because of it's runaway sales success.  But I feel like it's more likely that they'll either have to adapt to AAA development or simply pack it in and become a support studio for an AAA developer (Bend -> Naughty Dog; Cambridge -> Guerrilla).  

As a side note, Morpheus might be the saviour they need if it takes off properly.  I see Cambridge messed around with Move when it first came out.  Let's hope it does take off better than Move though, and isn't just another flavour of the month peripheral which gets nothing after the first couple of years.

OT: The handheld market is shrinking into irrelevance. You can see that with 3DS sales - a console which I feel has had everything go right for it once the first price drop hit (just about every major Nintendo franchise has arrived on it; some of the biggest Japanese franchises getting exclusive entries on it; multiple revisions to fit every demographic etc.) yet it's still going to be on par if not below the GBA.

Sony's place in the handheld market with PSP was a novelty. A novelty they couldn't replicate with the Vita.

Now, absolutely, they could (and in my opinion, should) have poured more support into the Vita and if they had, it would've seen much better sales. But on the whole I think it would've been a futile effort as the fate of the console is effectively the same - it doesn't have a future in the market; it won't be getting a traditional successor. So while I don't like it, I can see why they did what they did.

I don't know, I think the fact that all those studios have now moved on to the PS4 almost entirely (I'm sure Sony Japan is still doing some Vita stuff), gives a good indication that they would have had a place even without the Vita. And even as support studios they could have done great work.

If Cambridge had done support on KZ Shadowfall the game might have turned out a lot better (I keep hearing that Mercenary was the best Killzone game after all).

With Bend as a support studio UC4 might have not missed its initial release date.

But you've said it, it has been years since Bend has released a game and Sony is apparently still giving them the time to finish their project now, I think that is enough indication that they'd still be in the business even without the Vita. And Guerilla Cambridge seems too efficient of a studio to be let go, they've managed the jump from Vita to PS4 VR in 3 years after all.

Edit: Oh and regarding Sony Japan, after gen 7 I think they can do whatever they want and still be fine.

The fact that you think Tearaway moved hardware shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.

I think you mis-understood what I was saying a bit.

There was a period, not too long ago, when SCE weren't in such a good place.  PS3 had never been much of a success although they had turned things around from the disasterous launch - we all knew PS4 was coming, but we had no idea how much of a success it would be.  In that period, devs like Cambridge; Bend; Japan Studio; Studio Liverpool & Zipper worked on Vita.  Had Vita not been there, what place would they have had?  Sony clearly didn't want to commit massive resources to PS4 at launch, and they were already giving PS3 a load of back-end support in 2013 (GT6; Beyond; GoW; Ratchet etc.)

Vita was a good place for them to work in that period.  Had it not existed, Sony's options were - more PS3 games (but schedule was already ridiculously packed for a console on its way out) - PS4 games (like I said, for whatever reason Sony didn't want to go full-in on PS4 from the beginning it seems) - or close the studios.  Judging by the way SCE were behaving in 2012/2013, I'd imagine the answer would've been close them down.

Bend are probably allowed to keep this PS4 project going for so long because the PS4 is a success, that's what I'm saying.  It's okay because the console is selling well.  But if they'd been stuck in this weird development limbo before PS4 came out (i.e. Vita hadn't existed), they'd just have been shut down with the others.

At least that's how I see it.  I think you're forgetting what a culling spree SCE were on during that period (they also terminated a number of partnerships like Lightbox Interactive; Eat Sleep Play; Superbot Entertainment etc.)

They have bew shiny think that sells gangbusters its the os4 so sony only supports it
Im so sad for the vita such great device with wasted potential