Vita still sells well in Asia, but here’s why it failed everywhere else

While PlayStation’s portable Vita hasn’t really gotten much attention from the company lately, it’s still selling well — at least in Japan and Asia, Sony Interactive Entertainment of America president Shawn Layden tells Polygon.

The topic came up during an interview late last month with Layden and Jim Ryan, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe and president of global sales and marketing for SIE.

I broached it after discussing just how big PlayStation’s pool of gamers is (60 million) and how popular the portable Nintendo Switch is.

Polygon: You look at the Switch, which obviously there's a hunger for. Do you guys think, “Maybe we should do a Playstation Vita 2?” Or ... Did you just wince? Was that a painful wince?

Ryan: I do a lot of press in Europe and nobody asks.

Polygon: Really?

Ryan: Yeah.

Layden: For whatever reason, and there are a host of them, and there are even more reasons if we were drinking beer, Vita just didn't reach that critical mass with the audience and thereby, the development community doesn't get behind it and thereby, the audience doesn't come, and it's a quick negative spiral effect.

Polygon: Right.

Layden: You can still see it doing quite well in Japan and in Asia. Japanese publishers and developers are still creating content.

In a separate interview, Layden told The Verge that the Vita is “still a viable platform” and that it is still his favorite portable. One, he said, that travels with him “all the time.”