PlayStation Vita — OLED, a Rear Touch Pad and Costly Memory Cards

The PlayStation Vita went on sale in North America and Europe on 22 February 2012. In the US the Wi-Fi model cost $249.99 and the 3G/Wi-Fi model $299.99. Japan had it first, on 17 December 2011, at ¥24,980 and ¥29,980 respectively, tax included—two months ahead of North America.

According to SIE's corporate timeline, the December 2011 launch covered Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, followed in February 2012 by South Korea, North America and Europe. It arrived seven years after its predecessor, the PSP.

From NGP to PlayStation Vita

On 27 January 2011 SCE announced a next-generation portable entertainment system, codenamed NGP, slated for the end of 2011. The announcement already described its main features: a 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen, a multi-touch pad on the back and a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9.

The Japanese date and prices came in an SCE announcement on 14 September 2011. Pre-orders opened on 15 October, and 26 titles were promised for launch day. The same release gave these specifications:

SCE America announced the North American date and prices on 18 October 2011. The same release gave European prices of €249.99 and €299.99.

Proprietary memory cards

On the Vita, downloaded games and save data were stored not on a standard SD card but on a proprietary memory card (English Wikipedia); the later PCH-2000 had 1 GB built in. SCE's September 2011 release gave these Japanese prices, tax included:

The reduced prices are from AV Watch's report of SCE's September 2013 announcement. English Wikipedia summarises repeated criticism from reviewers that the proprietary cards were overpriced.

The slim model and PS Vita TV

According to AV Watch, on 9 September 2013 SCE announced a thinner, lighter model, the PCH-2000, for 10 October at ¥19,929. It was 20 percent thinner, at 15 mm, and 15 percent lighter, at 219 g, and the OLED screen was replaced by an LCD of the same 5 inches and 960×544. It also had 1 GB of built-in memory.

Announced the same day was the PS Vita TV, which connected to a television. According to AV Watch, it went on sale on 14 November 2013 at ¥9,954. It played compatible Vita games and PlayStation and PSP titles from the Game Archives, but needed a DUALSHOCK 3 controller, sold separately. According to SIE's timeline, it launched as PlayStation TV in North America in October 2014 and in Europe in November 2014.

Units sold

The worldwide figure in SIE's corporate timeline is 1.2 million, as of February 2012. According to English Wikipedia, Sony stopped publishing direct sales figures after that. The same article cites outside estimates of about 15 million in 2017 and about 16 million in 2018; neither is a Sony figure.

End of shipments, and the store

According to GameBusiness.jp, Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia updated the official PS Vita page in March 2019 to announce that shipments of the current PCH-2000 model had ended. The article notes that this closed a history of PlayStation handhelds lasting 14 years and two months, from the PSP in December 2004.

The store lasted longer. According to the PlayStation Blog, Sony had planned to close the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita in the summer of 2021, but reversed the decision on 19 April 2021. On 1 July 2026 it announced again that the store on PS Vita would close in July 2027 (with the PS3 store closing earlier in some countries). The reason given was that PS3 and PS Vita could not support new standards such as updated payment processing; previously purchased content can still be re-downloaded for the foreseeable future.

The home consoles of the same period were the PlayStation 3 (2006) and its successor, the PlayStation 4 (2013). For the wider story, see the game consoles timeline.