Jack Tretton talks about the Western situation of the PlayStation Vita.
Tretton‘s name isn’t unknown: he was Sony Computer Entertainment America’s boss between 1995 (the launch of the original PlayStation) and 2014. He talked to IGN two years after his departure.
„Now that I don’t work there anymore, I think internally it was: ‘This is a great machine, it’s just too late.’ The world has shifted to portable devices that aren’t dedicated gaming machines,” Tretton said. He knows that the PSP was a rousing success, though.
The PlayStation Vita came out in 2012 outside of Japan, and by that year, smartphone games (iOS and Android) has taken a chunk of the gaming market, taking the attention away from the handheld.
It’s a question if Sony will make a new handheld or not, especially seeing how the Nintendo NX will likely be a portable device.