In an interview with 4gamer.net (and a translation provided by DualShockers), Senior Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment, Masayasu Ito, spoke to them regarding the position the PS Vita now finds itself in. With the recent news that that a Vita successor is not likely on the horizon, Vita fans may be a little disheartened to know that Sony currently has no first party Vita games in development, while implying there are no plans for some in the future.
First let's be clear that this does not mean development for any games on the Vita has stopped, just those developed by Sony's own studios. Instead, Ito explained that those studios are being shifted over to the PS4 to focus on developing games for that system.
This isn't something entirely out of the blue or new either, as Sony mentioned back at E3 this year no more big Vita games would likely be released for the system. So, this is more of a confirmation that this is indeed the case.
This all means that nobody should expect any big name Playstation franchises to appear on the Vita anymore—at least not for a long while. We've started to see some of this already with some games debuting on the Vita to only have the sequel be a Playstation 4 exclusive, like with Tearaway and Tearaway: Unfolded. The same thing recently happened with Gravity Rush and the recently announced Gravity Rush 2.
This also means we probably shouldn't expect to see any more HD collections or remakes of older games like they have done with Sly Cooper and most recently God of War.
However, don't be too disheartened though, as Sony will likely continue the trend in allowing you to stream the big budget PS4 games to your Vita.
Quick Take
While the Vita isn't all that old, releasing in Japan in 2011, it has certainly lost steam, particularly in the West. Though, this is a little surprising when, according to vgchartz, half of the top 20 best selling Vita games are first party titles. Though, if you look at the sales, of even the best selling game at 1.47 million ... it may be a bit easier to understand why they are pushing their talent towards the Playstation 4.
In any case, though, there will still be plenty of cool third party titles to enjoy.
