How fast will the PS Vita die off?

That's not really the loaded question it sounds, the Vita will continue to soldier on as long as people buy games for it. Given new games for the Dreamcast are still appearing, that could be a very long time. But, I was more wondering when the Vita will vanish from the front pages of gaming sites and so on.

This chart shows how the Vita has always struggled in headline terms against the 3DS, but it is starting to tail off badly over the last year. Looking past the peaks and troughs, it is definitely on the way to the bottom. Give it a couple more years and its unlikely to be picking up any headlines, and you could easily see Sony discard it from its roster to focus on the PS4. Note the huge preference for PS4 articles on the PSN blogs this year.

Certainly, the few Vita exclusive games aren't getting reviewed by larger sites these days (Flame Over being the latest example) and any news that does make headlines tends to be negative. Still, I love my Vita and hope the community gets to enjoy it for years to come.

Interestingly, the Vita almost exactly tracks the interest in Apple's "hobby" TV product, but with an Apple TV fourth-generation model to be launched next month, probably offering games support, expect that to take off massively. That only highlights what a poor job Sony has done with PlayStation TV, and the basic failure of the Vita project outside of Japan.