Sony is leaving PlayStation Vita game development up to third parties as it focuses on PS4, senior VP Masayasu Ito has stated.

While that isn't too surprising given how few games the company has developed for the handheld in recent years, Ito made it official in an interview with Japanese site 4Gamer (as translated by DualShockers).

"Currently, first-party studios have no titles in development for PS Vita," Ito said. "Since third parties are working very hard on PS Vita, SCE's own strategy is to focus on PS4, which is a new platform."

These comments came after referencing that third-party games continue to be released for the nearly four-year-old (in Japan) system.

"At the beginning, the PS Vita did not resonate with age targets under 20, but now the situation is changing and the popularity with younger demographics is increasing. Minecraft: PS Vita Edition has provided a boost," Ito said, referencing last year's release. "In addition to that, a variety of third-party games [are] also planned for the future, and in order to further accelerate that flow, we decided to release new colors for the PS Vita this fall."

Back in September, Sony announced a number of excellent new Vita colors, although only one of these--aqua blue--is coming to the United States.

A redesigned version of the Vita debuted in 2013 in Japan, followed by a western release in early 2014. Despite this, Sony's commitment to Vita hasn't been especially strong of late, and it's admitted in the past that sales weren't as strong as it hoped. Still, it did reaffirm its support of the platform last year, saying it had found its niche.