Former PlayStation boss Jack Tretton has said he wishes Sony had backed the PlayStation Vita more.
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The handheld console was released in 2011 as a successor to the PSP. It is believed to have sold around 15million units before it was discontinued in 2019.
However, following the success of the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck, Tretton has said that forward-thinking tech was “orphaned a little bit” by Sony in a new interview with Axios Gaming. “Being a successful part of a big corporation sometimes meant having to make sacrifices when other parts of the business weren’t performing so well,” he explained.
“There were certainly technologies that I thought were good but just didn’t have the level of support they needed,” also citing 3D gaming and PlayStation VR, which didn’t launch until after he left the company in 2014.
Former PlayStation U.S. chief Jack Tretton, like some of you, wished Sony did better by the Vita
"There were certainly technologies that I thought were good but just didn't have the level of support they needed."
(from today's Axios Gaming newsletter) pic.twitter.com/Rxs0gQfG16
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) April 7, 2022
“So, you come up with new technology to introduce to the industry and the consumers. But do you have the marketing budget to really drive the message? Do you have the developer support dollars to incent them to develop games to support this initiative? And sometimes you would birth technology and hope that it caught on,” he continued.
Sony recently reversed a decision to shut down the digital stores for both the PS3 and the Vita. Originally those storefronts were going to be closed last year, making it impossible for customers to purchase digital copies of games for those systems. Sony said the move was “born out of a number of factors, including commerce support challenges for older devices along with a desire to focus more on newer products.”
However, following backlash from fans, Sony decided to keep them open. “Upon further reflection, however, it’s clear that we made the wrong decision here,” Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan announced in a blog post.
In other news, Sony has revealed they’ve sold over 17.3 million PS5 consoles as of December 2021, despite an ongoing chip shortage.
The PS5 is Sony’s fastest-selling console of all time after it hit the 10million sales mark a month quicker than the PS4 did.
