As we tweeted late last night, Sony is ending support for Maps, Near, and YouTube on the PlayStation Vita. According to Sony, the YouTube app on Vita will no longer be supported come April 20th though the app itself is being pulled from the store today (January 28th). For those who live on YouTube, fear not as you’ll still be able to turn to YouTube via the Vita browser by visiting (http://m.youtube.com). There you will be able to access your YouTube content, such as playlists and channels.

As for Maps and Near, those are also coming to an end sometime in March, when a mandatory software update will pull the features from the Vita. Unlike YouTube, there will be no replacement for those apps. While always disappointing to hear about a loss of features, it makes perfect sense for Sony to pull the latter two though YouTube is a bit more perplexing. Let’s talk why after the jump.

As disappointing as it is hear Maps and Near are going away, the truth is that those features aren’t that useful in a world where we all have an iOS or Android smartphone on us at any given time. If our smartphones relied on Wi-Fi like the Vita, maps and similar apps would likely be pretty useless. The fact that you can pull up maps at any given time when you’re either lost or are looking for something is what makes the app powerful and useful. The Vita, on the other hand, (unless you have the 3G model which I’m certain 95% of people don’t) is quite useless in this area unless you’re planning on Starbucks hopping.

You can then apply the same logic for Near. The whole idea was that while you’re out and about, you can drop challenges and rewards for other players to find – but if you’re most connected to the web when you’re home, the feature is once again quite useless, no matter how cool it sounds. For Sony, it’s simply a matter of shifting resources and hopefully putting them into improving or adding features players want and will use.

The killing of the YouTube app is a bit more bizarre. It’s unclear if Sony was directly in charge of  YouTube or if it was overseen by Google and they simply no longer wished to support it. Just yesterday, Google announced that it would be ending support for Flash on YouTube and instead switching to HTML5. While I don’t have any direct knowledge of the underpinning of the Vita app, it seems more than suspicious that in under 24 hours, news would come that the YouTube app is being killed off on Vita. Still, at least in this case, gamers are left with an option to watch YouTube videos via the web browser.

From Sony:

Q: What do you mean by some features of “near” will be disabled? What will I not be able to do on “near” ?

A: “near” will not be able to obtain location address, or display maps.

Q: Are there any ways to look up maps or location information on PS Vita, after features of “Maps” are disabled?

A: You can use Google Maps via the “Browser” app. on PS Vita.  However, search results for point/path search may differ between the “Maps” application and Google Maps displayed on the “Browser” application. Also, search histories will be saved based on the specifications of the “Browser”, and the history saved on the “Maps” application will be deleted.

Furthermore, certain features that were available on the “Maps” application may be unavailable on Google Maps.

Q: What happens to the data I achieved while using “Maps” and “near” on PS Vita?

A: “near”:
Information that were obtained before the update such as (1) Address information of “Out-and-About History”, “Out-and-About Radar” and “Local Chart”, (2) Address of “Private Zone Settings” will remain saved.
*Please note that (1) will be deleted after 7 days and (2) will be deleted if the private zone setting is cancelled.

“Maps”: Information such as “Bookmark” saved within the application will be deleted simultaneously with the feature disablement.

Q: Can I continue to use “Maps” and “near” if I don’t update my PS Vita system?

A: No, features will be in any case disabled in March 2015, and deleted after updating the system software.

Q: Are there any differences between the YouTube app & YouTube using the “Browser” ?

A: In general, you are able to enjoy YouTube on the “Browser” like you were able to on the YouTube app. For example, you can enjoy the same video content and watch them in the same quality. However, there are several features that you cannot enjoy via the “Browser,” for example, you will not be able to select other video content if you are already playing a video.

Discuss:

Will you miss any of the soon-to-be-gone Vita apps?

[Via PlayStation Support]