A Persona 5 on the Vita would have helped the system a lot, but it's the card Sony is using to get the japanese market  to upgrade to the PS4. Even if the game is still coming to the PS3.

If Sony were to create a reasonably priced handheld, with the same core architecture and API of PS4, as well as supporting the system with appropriate software and either a built in HDD or cheap SD card support it would sell incredibly well.

TBH the issue with 3rd party support is no different for Sony in the portable space, than it is for Nintendo in the home console market, if Sony makes games targeted towards the western market, that sell then 3rd party developers will flock to the platform.
3rd party supports platforms that will sell their games, if Sony created a portable platform with unique titles that appeal to the 3rd party market or they made a handheld that made allowed simple cross-play and porting a reality then there's no reason why a dedicated gaming portable can't carve out a decent chunk of the mobile gaming market.
Hell Sony are probably in the best position to appeal to 3rd party, because it's already proven that they can make western focused games that drive the 3rd party audience towards their platform and Playstation is already synonymous with video gaming as people know it today.

The market exists, it's just that no one right now is properly catering to it in the way that those platform holders are towards the home console or PC user base.

Hopefully they will now put ps store on tablets and mobiles since it won't be comepting with any future handhelds then.

To be fair, Sony's forte was never really first party, as the only Sony platform without 3rd party, this becomes obvious.

Since 3rd party support for handhelds unilaterally declined, the vita is what happens when you get Nintendo level 3rd party support on a Sony platform, i.e not pretty.

At the same time, ignoring the mobile market is naive, where do you think all of those third parties went? Here's a hint, I've got like 15 Sega games on my phone right now.

The 3DS suffered in the beginning along with the PS VITA, and the Nintendo's handhelds have always dominiated the handheld console market. Just b/c Nintendo rebounded, how in the hell would Vita be able to do the same. And you have every right to call for more support of the system, but Vita was already a sinking ship when Sony who was bleeding money, selling off buildings was trying to patch the holes in the PS3, and release the PS4.

Like the Wii U, the Vita was hampered because of its predecessor, the PSP which became the poster child for console piracy, resulted in the Vita where security was so focused on that it ended up with 60+ dollar memory cards.

Those who are still ignoring the mobile market's effect on gaming let alone handhelds are just in denail. It's happening and their is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Like I said in my other threads, handhelds will become niche because of mobile, the casuals who played handhelds before won't give a damn about a new Nintendo or Sony handheld, unless they value a stick and physical buttons for the 100$ of dollars more they would pay to not be able to do anything else but play video games. 

Nintendo could pull it off, since they are very centralized and have always had strong 1st party.

A niche market is Toxic to Sony, the support simply wouldn't be there.

I think the only way a new handheld could work is if it was a PS4 Portable. The most important thing being it would have to share the same library of games. They'd have to work on the handheld out of the box - without any sort of extra work put in by the devs. Also all games would have to be cross-buy on PSN. It would be acceptable for it to somehow scale the graphics down a bit, but the previous point would have to stand - everything works. I don't believe a handheld with its own unique library is possible or viable at all in this market.

Too late maybe, but considering that for most people the go-to game for the system is Persona 4, the announcement would have sold quite a number of systems, specially bundled.

1) They designed the vita too expensive to make
They could cut a few corners and save abit, eg. on touch funktions ect.

2) They use weird and expensive memory.


Wasnt going to work out well,.... things started off badly when they designed it.

Considering remoteplay that is exactly what the Vita is.

The Persona franchise has grown in popularity a lot recently. So anyone that wants to play them all might look for a system that plays most games. And because the Vita plays PSP/PS1 games (Persona 1, 2, 2.2, 3PSP) and has the updated version of 4, its the ideal system for that.

This 100%. I couldn't for the life of me understand why they had studios like Ready at Dawn who made some great PSP games turned into PS4 developers. The money they wasted on The Order 1886 could of made half a dozen Vita exclusives. They closed the Wipeout developer who made a couple of PSP entries and they also started some series like Resistance and Uncharted and never bloody sequelled them. The touchpad is a pain and really put some people off the PSV but it has a pretty decent library from it's early years and Japan has churned out some good stuff. Mobile didn't kill their handheld business. Bad decisions from management did.

Also...I couldn't get why they didn't work their arses off to turn the PSV into a portable PS2 the way the PSP was a portable PS1 in terms of emulation. They'd of made a killing off of the thing and had an even larger library.