It seems it is not only physical game cards that Sony are discontinuing. It has been announced during the Tokyo Games Show that Sony will officially be ending production of the PlayStation Vita in Japan and that there are no current plans for a successor. Sony Interactive Entertainment Senior Vice President Hiroyuki Oda announced: "Currently, we do not have any plans regarding a new handheld device. [...] In Japan, we will manufacture PlayStation Vita until 2019. From there, shipping will end." Japan was of course the Vita's best selling location, this could mean the last nail in the Vita's slow and painful death.

In many ways, this was probably to be expected. The Vita did many things right as far as a gameplay experience goes and had improvements over the PSP. PS3 equivalent games on the go, a larger and more beautiful screen, dual analog sticks. But at the Sony did many things wrong. No physical backwards compatibility with PSP games; no video output options and instead releasing a shackled micro-console equivalent that doesn't support all games without hacking it; removing almost all social media apps like Facebook and YouTube; and their ridiculous over-reliance on stupid expensive proprietary memory cards that quickly fill up with all the digital games, patches, videos and other digital content you download. When didn't sell well as a handheld console, Sony shifted their focus and rebranded it as a streaming device for PS4 remote play. But of course, now PS4 can be played remotely on any smartphone, tablet or laptop running the remote play app. This largely eliminated the necessity to use the Vita for that purpose.

While for many of us this is a time for mourning, it is also a time for hope. It seems very odd that Sony would decide to cancel the Vita so soon after releasing a new firmware update. Maybe his statement has been mistranslated? But if it is to be discontinued, maybe that means firmware 3.69 will be the last of these surprise updates - leaving the doors open for hacking on the latest firmware. In the years that followed the PSP's discontinuation we saw a microSD to Memory Stick Duo adapter. Maybe in the days following the Vita's discontinuation we'll see something similar for the Vita? Maybe someday we'll see a hub that will plug into the Vita's memory card slot and allow us to use micro SD cards with the Vita? And it's been four years since the PSP was discontinued, yet the online the digital games purchased through the PlayStation Store keep it alive today. Perhaps we can expect the same with the Vita's digital library of games and back catalog of PSP and PSone games?

Despite these announcement, I will continue to keep this petition going. Let the world know there is still a legion of loyal fans who support the Vita and PSTV and will continue to support it until the end. This is for the players.