With the current glut of mobile phone games and the Nintendo Switch Lite dominating the portable gaming market, it's easy to forget Sony used to have a pretty strong foothold in that market. In fact, many gamers may have forgotten that the PS Vita was still having new games made for it's system up until earlier this year.

It seems that the lack of sales and even an awareness that the PS Vita existed has finally pushed Sony out of the handheld gaming business for good. Fortunately for the few people who actually own a PS Vita, that means massive discounts on nearly every game for the system.

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The PS Vita was home to several hidden PS Vita gems that no one ever played. Luckily, now's the best time to pick up some of those titles as every game available for the PS Vita on the PlayStation Store has at least a 50% discount. Some titles, like Don't Starve: Giant Edition and the Metal Gear Solid: HD Collection, boast a staggering 75% cut. Some games already had pretty low prices, like Suikoden, so the price drop is much smaller, going from a paltry $5.99 to $2.99 USD. The Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Truth Bundle, on the other hand, was originally being sold for $49.99. Now that price has been slashed down to $12.49.

Normally with all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals going on, these discounts wouldn't seem too far out of place, but this is also happening soon after Sony suggested that they were done making handheld consoles. After a patent that Sony had filed lead to rumors that a new handheld console could be on the way, Sony came forward to put an end to that.

Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO, Jim Ryan, confirmed in an interview that the company has no plans to make a successor to the PS Vita and PSP. Though Ryan said the PS Vita was a brilliant system, he said the handheld gaming market is "a business that we're no longer in now," despite what some indie publishers had said earlier this year.

Of course, that doesn't mean that there will never be another Sony handheld console, just not one in the foreseeable future. Right now, Sony is focused on its next-gen console, the PlayStation 5. This might not be the best time to enter the handheld gaming market, either, given the aforementioned Switch is destroying all other competition, including Nintendo's own 3DS.

As for the PS Vita's games, the discounts do seem to be part of PlayStation's "End of Year Sale," and like the Totally Digital sale back in September, these aren't permanent price drops. Still, it wouldn't be surprising if these games do receive a permanent price drop in the near future.

PlayStation's "End of Year Sale" ends December 23rd.

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Source: Official PlayStation Store US