PS Vita Support: Niconico thrives where Youtube flounders

It would be an understatement to say that the PS Vita has been performing poorly. This year in the US the system has been shifting anywhere in the unstable region of 8,000–30,000 units a month, with things looking relatively better in Japan where around 60,000–80,0000 units were shifted in any given month. The Japanese figures being not only higher, but showing less volatility between the high-end and low-end.

Perhaps then it's unsurprising that as of January 28 this year Sony withdrew the Vita Youtube app from the PlayStation Store, making it impossible to download (with support ceasing entirely on April 20 for users that already had the application installed) — a move that some have speculated is part of a ramping down of PS Vita support as Sony lets the system quietly go out to pasture. 

However, the system's greater clout in the Japanese marketplace might be the reason behind a July 16 update to the Vita's Niconico Douga application. Niconico Douga being a popular Japanese video sharing site much like Youtube or Dailymotion. 

The July 16 update added the functionality to view comments and other information (such as related video recommendations for both archived videos and live streams) whilst keeping the active video  playing in a large panel. Users can now resize a video during playback with the addition of resizing panel icons (or by pressing the Triangle button).

This is in contrast to the way support for the Vita Youtube application has been handled users who started up the Vita Youtube app after April 20 found videos no longer played and the application prompting them to use the system's web browser instead. Quite the predicament given that most web-based media players stump the Vita's web browser video playback capabilities. Curiously it was Niconico Douga (rather than Sony) that sent out e-mails to its users on July 23, detailing the application update.

With the system unlikely to gain global traction it makes sense that the Vita is receiving updates for Japanese-centric video services such as Niconico Douga over Youtube.