Sony hinted that it will no longer release a new generation of PSV

In an interview recently, Yoshida Shuiping, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Studios (SCE Worldwide Studios), hinted that due to the popularity and development of smartphones and mobile games, the handheld PSV may not be the second generation.

During the EGX (European Game Show) event, when asked by reporters whether PSV2 would be launched, Yoshida Yoshida replied, "It's hard to say that most people nowadays have smart phones. Playing games on mobile phones is very simple and the majority It's still free, at least for free trials... I hope everyone can continue the cultural heritage of handheld games, but now its living environment is really unhealthy. We must admit that mobile games have taken a dominant position in the market."

As of the first quarter of this year, PSV sold a total of approximately 2.24 million units in North America, approximately 2.9 million units in Europe, approximately 3.62 million units in Japan, and approximately 1.19 million in other regions. The sales volume of 10 million units lasted for three years and was considered to be the tragedy of the Sony game console. It should be noted that the total sales volume of PSP in the 10 years of its listing is close to 80 million, while the sales volume of Nintendo NDS released during the same period is more than 150 million units. However, in the global market, the sales of handhelds have fallen not just for the Sony family. Nintendo’s WiiU sales have even less than tens of millions of units. It has also become the most dismal model in the history of the company.

PSV is also disastrous in the sales of game software. Still referring to the data in the first quarter of this year, the best-selling “Uncharted: Gold Abyss” sold only 1.42 million, while the “GTA Freetown Story” on the PSP sold 7.65 million times. Nintendo's Pokemon X/Y sold more than 12 million copies.

In fact, it is not a mobile game that replaces a handheld device, but a mobile phone. It is not difficult to understand that the experience of buttons and joysticks is by no means a substitute for mobile phone touch screens, but people can get a higher quality joystick game experience at home consoles and computers. The previous advantages of handhelds were portable, but at present, mobile phones are obviously more convenient and able to meet a variety of user needs. It has occupied the majority of people's fragmentation time. Now the positioning of the handheld is sandwiched between the mobile phone, the host computer, and the computer.

Foreign media also pointed out other reasons for the failure of PSV, such as Sony's forcing users to use their memory cards, and then selling it to a high price (up to $100 for a 32GB PSV memory card) to make money. In addition, the amount of game content on the market is unprecedented, and Sony has not invested heavily in game content operations as a distribution platform. The company’s investment in PSV has decreased significantly in recent years. It has previously publicly announced that it will no longer develop new heavyweight games on PSV. There is no effort to transplant the classic games on the old model to the PSV. When the environment is not good, content is directly ignored and there is a meaning of “abandoning treatment”.