-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
The Verge: The portable PlayStations were Sony at its most ambitious
- Thread starter Earvin Infinity
- Start date
I don't agree with this statement. The PlayStation 1 and 2 were Sony at their most ambitious. That's why those two consoles changed the video game landscape so profoundly.
That has nothing to do with how ambitious their portables were.
Then why did the gamers bought 500 million handhelds since the first Gameboy?
🙄 Riiight, and next you're gonna tell me that the Dualshock was the basis for all modern controller deisgn...
OP
OP
The DualShock is the Steve Jobs of modern controller design!
I don't know about the Vita, but yeah, Sony was ambitious with the PSP - they were kings of the home space after the PS2, and wanted a pie of the handheld market, too.
Sadly for them, Nintendo was in beast mode with the DS. Considering that, the PSP still had good sales.
Sadly for them, Nintendo was in beast mode with the DS. Considering that, the PSP still had good sales.
I still love and use my Vita & Vita TV regularly. More and more time is going towards my Switch but the Vita really was an awesome piece of bespoke hardware when taken advantage of.
Back in the psp and vita days : "we don't want consoles experiences on handheld, we want on the go experiences!"
Switch days : "Actually..."
Switch days : "Actually..."
To this day the white Vita 2000 is the sexiest handheld I have ever seen.White PS Vita is sexy.
I've loved every Sony handheld, the PSP was a goldmine for JRPGs and the Vita was a system with so much potential that never got tapped, but I still loved the games I played on it
I remember playing Wipeout 2048 near launch and it blew my mind it was running on a portable system
It's disappointing we may never see another Sony handheld
I remember playing Wipeout 2048 near launch and it blew my mind it was running on a portable system
It's disappointing we may never see another Sony handheld
The PSP might be the furthest ahead of the competition a console ever has been tech-wise. It absolutely blew the DS away in terms of graphics and storage capabilities. It was truly ambitious and cutting edge for the time. It always felt gimped for the type of games Sony focused on though due to the lack of a second stick. 3D action games just did not play well on the console.
The Vita never felt ambitious to me. They just took parts that were available on the market. The only "positive" extraordinary thing about it was the awkward back touch pad. Many things about the Vita was below what the market should have expected for a modern handheld such as the 4GB game cards and max 32GB memory cards at launch. It also failed to reach native resolution for most games. It's true that it was the first dual-stick handheld but I don't think that was ambitious, just what the market rightfully should expect in 2012. Still played the crap out of my Vita though. Sony's first party games made it worthwhile and it was great for portable indies.
The Vita never felt ambitious to me. They just took parts that were available on the market. The only "positive" extraordinary thing about it was the awkward back touch pad. Many things about the Vita was below what the market should have expected for a modern handheld such as the 4GB game cards and max 32GB memory cards at launch. It also failed to reach native resolution for most games. It's true that it was the first dual-stick handheld but I don't think that was ambitious, just what the market rightfully should expect in 2012. Still played the crap out of my Vita though. Sony's first party games made it worthwhile and it was great for portable indies.
The PSP Go is easily one of the sexiest consumer electronics ever released.
I sold my PSP one month after I got it. It was a huge waste of money and I only really got it to play Crisis Core anyway. Handheld consoles are not for me. I don't play video games when I'm outside, and iPhone already has an endless amount of games for when people take a shit that I'm sure are cheaper to make and also cheaper to buy.
I hope Sony never wastes their money on PSP again.
I hope Sony never wastes their money on PSP again.
I'll keep shouting it from the rooftops, I want a PS5 Portable about 2 or 3 years into next gen that can play all the digital games the PS5 can play, just at 720p or 1080p resolution along with 5g for Now access.
Do that and combined I'll bet my left asscheek that the PS5 family will crack the 200 million unit mark 😃
Do that and combined I'll bet my left asscheek that the PS5 family will crack the 200 million unit mark 😃
I genuinely suspect we wouldn't have a Switch if it hadn't been for the Vita and PSP. It really looks and feels like the natural evolution of both Sony and Nintendo's portable ancestors.
I understand the reason y, but still bummed Sony won't partake in the handheld space. I don't play portable, but would love a way to play on a tablet.
Yup. Sony's handhelds are my favorite bits of hardware ever.
PSP and PS Vita's legacy will never be forgotten (and lives on in the Switch for all practical purposes).
PSP and PS Vita's legacy will never be forgotten (and lives on in the Switch for all practical purposes).
Really? I can understand the PS2 and PS3. But PS1 tho was literally "Hey lets give this a shot , since we already made all this shit for Nintendo".
I feel like PS1 was more on Sony marketing being smart as well as Sega ( And Nintendo to an extent ) majorly fucking up at a very crucial point in gaming history.
The PSP and Vita were too underpowered and lacking in features to really deliver on their promise of delivering PS2/PS3 quality gaming on the go. Their best games were the ones that were designed to fit in the limitations of the system rather than games that tried to deliver a full console experience.
Give me more Sony Hardware. Drop the Xperia smartphones and make handhelds again.
Miss holding the PSP 2000 Slim & Lite Piano Black....
Miss holding the PSP 2000 Slim & Lite Piano Black....
I kinda feel like PSVR is the new space where Sony is ambitious like the Vita. It's a super cool device that isn't a huge seller, but gets a lot of love from the hardcore. It's also like their portable game system, in the sense that it gets support from their b-tier devs (although like the portables they've had some really good output).
PSP was awesome when it hit, but its limitations- blurry screen, only one analog nub, crummy dpad - meant it got long in the tooth after a couple of years for me.
But Vita, that was a dream machine. It was too expensive, and the article's on point, cell phones hurt it bad and Sony couldn't/wouldn't get enough software on there to make a go of it. "Console gaming on the go" was too expensive to develop if the Vita was the only market for it.
But man, I loved that machine. The internet took glee in constantly pronouncing it dead from its second year on, but Japanese 3rd parties & indies kept it going for years. It was a jrpg & visual novel haven, and access to the PSP library with a real dpad & fantastic screen was a godsend. And despite cellphones sidelining a lot of its functionality, fact is that browser saved me from some bad situations when I was travelling. I would have been right there day one if Sony had announced a followup.
There was a moment where it looked like it might merge with their Xperia line which could have been epic, but sadly it never materialized despite seeming to make a world of sense.
But Vita, that was a dream machine. It was too expensive, and the article's on point, cell phones hurt it bad and Sony couldn't/wouldn't get enough software on there to make a go of it. "Console gaming on the go" was too expensive to develop if the Vita was the only market for it.
But man, I loved that machine. The internet took glee in constantly pronouncing it dead from its second year on, but Japanese 3rd parties & indies kept it going for years. It was a jrpg & visual novel haven, and access to the PSP library with a real dpad & fantastic screen was a godsend. And despite cellphones sidelining a lot of its functionality, fact is that browser saved me from some bad situations when I was travelling. I would have been right there day one if Sony had announced a followup.
There was a moment where it looked like it might merge with their Xperia line which could have been epic, but sadly it never materialized despite seeming to make a world of sense.
Psp was one of my favourite systems ever, have many fond memories with gta:lcs, tekken. Pursuit force, gow:gos and its other gems.
I was mega hyped for the vita, but it just fizzled away after launch because its library was extremely lacking compared to the psp.
I was mega hyped for the vita, but it just fizzled away after launch because its library was extremely lacking compared to the psp.
if i could make love to a gadget it would be the vita. the sexiest gadget ive ever laid hands on.
im getting hot just thinking about it.
oh god. brb
im getting hot just thinking about it.
oh god. brb
The mobile group is useful to Sony if only for them to be an in-house R&D group with intimate knowledge of phones, Android and 5G that all the other divisions of Sony can tap instead of having to learn from scratch whenever they want to do something in that space. I'm still hopeful the mobile group will be able to find its footing and gain back some market share. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of collaboration with Playstation in the form of a better quality Xperia Play 2, or what it should be called the Playstation Phone since using Now to play on the go will be a bigger thing.
That thing better should have analog Sticks. But how they gonna keep at Slim and Lite .....
I remember dreaming of the Xperia Play back then lol
I'd love proper sticks to, but don't know how practical it'd be. At absolute worst maybe use 2 of the nubs from the PSP?
I hate to say it but Sony could make it like Nintendo With joy-Cons
Or these magnetic analog sticks which u can take off .
They weren't ambitious at all. Both were fairly mild takes on handheld gaming not dissimilar to what anyone else had tried, just with more contemporary tech. And then they didn't support them well, clearly deprioritizing them in terms of game investment. If these are Sony being ambitious, I think it says quite a lot about Sony and not in a good way.
I disagree with the premise since I think Sony was the most ambitious during the PS1 and PS2 era when it comes to hardware but I disagree with the idea that they gave up on the PSP software wise. The Vita sure, they really just stopped supporting that thing but the PSP had great first party (and great 3rd party support) for it's entire life.