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PS Vita physical games are dead, but it doesn’t need them anyway

PS Vita physical games are dead, but it doesn’t need them anyway

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Six years after the PlayStation Vita’s launch, Sony is ending its production of physical games for most of the world. First reported by Kotaku, a Sony rep has since confirmed to The Verge that the company’s American and European branches — not its Japanese locations — will halt production by the end of 2018’s fiscal year. The good news? It won’t impact digital sales, meaning the Vita lives on.

While this news signals another nail in the handheld’s eventual coffin, the Vita’s best offerings have never been its new titles. That’s not to say the system doesn’t offer strong standouts — like Gravity Rush, Persona 4 Golden, and Tearaway (many of which have been ported to PS4 at this point anyway). But it’s also considered a library system for older games. The Vita offers support for PS One classics, as well as some PSP titles. For Japanese role-playing game fans, it’s an easy way to gather nearly the full library for long-running franchises like Final Fantasy or Persona, in addition to classic games like Suikoden II or Chrono Cross. It’s a perfect legacy handheld.

The portable nature of the Vita has always made digital buys the preferable choice — as long as you have a memory card to house them all. If the impending demise of physical media has you feeling blue, it might be time to invest in more memory for your Vita.