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Sony portable console

Woopah

Member
To be successful in the Japanese market they stand a much better chance with focusing on the PS5 than investing in creating a separate portable. Many in a few years they could have a portable SKU of PS5 that could receive downports, and then they wouldn't have to split their development resources.

Most of all what they need to grow in Japan is a new, massive hit. Something like Monster Hunter for PSP, Minecraft for Vita, Yokai Watch for 3DS, Splatoon for Wii U and Ring Fit for Switch. Sony has a third-party lead strategy but if third parties aren't putting new or fast-growing mega franchises on your platform then you're not going to be able to get good hardware adoption. That's true for any market.

PSP and PS2 both got that, and that's why the did so well in Japan.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Well Vita was praised for its low price too but we saw what happened. Lmao



The 154.9m selling one spawned a successor that continues the winning steak, while the 85million one spawned a successor that permanently killed the handheld line of the company.
Nintendo zealots just love to overpay for underpowered hardware. They're conditioned to not accept anything more 😅.
 

DESTROYA

Member
Nintendo zealots just love to overpay for underpowered hardware. They're conditioned to not accept anything more 😅.
Might be under powered for a home console but not a handheld, and it still handles TV gaming just fine for the most part.
Where did Nintendo hurt you do be so touchy about a game console, you sound juvenile
 
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Ogbert

Member
Would love Sony to release another handheld.

Won't happen though. It's as likely as Nintendo releasing a home console to rival X and PS5.
 

DESTROYA

Member
Bought it, enjoyed the hell out of it for what it is then I move on.

Will probably bought a second one to play back all those recent fan translated games.
Pathetic line of games for a handheld. Mostly JRPG havens and Visual Novels.
These don’t make sense if you say in one sentence it has a pathetic line of games and then say you enjoyed the hell out of it and will buy a new one to play some of the games you missed.🤷‍♂️
Weird comments
 
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MagnesG

Banned
These don’t make sense if you say in one sentence it has a pathetic line of games and then say you enjoyed the hell out of it and will buy a new one to play some of the games you missed.🤷‍♂️
Weird comments
For a handheld my dude. Look at PSP, GB families, GBA, DS even 3DS, there's no competition right there.

It needs at least a MonHun not some knockoff of it for a breakout backlog.

PSP no games. Lmao.
Or you could be fan of both? Bought pretty much all those handhelds no fanboy notion needed. Portable gaming is awesome.
 
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Ceadeus

Member
Bought it, enjoyed the hell out of it for what it is then I move on.

Will probably bought a second one to play back all those recent fan translated games.

Developers probably were scared of development cost as it was more powerful than the 3DS. There's many reason why its lifespan been so short. It could have a much larger library otherwise. Just like the varied library of the PSP probably.
 
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MagnesG

Banned
Developers probably were scared of development cost as it was more powerful than the 3DS. There's many reason why its lifespan been so short. It could have a much larger library otherwise. Just like the varied library of the PSP probably.
The thing is, despite PSP selling well hardware wise it's the opposite with regards to their software sales data. Probably because of UMD initially and pirating the games becoming too easy around halfway through its lifecycle. To combat that Sony forced the Vita to have proprietary memory cards but the whole thing just backfired.

Sony just can't win sadly in the portable realm.
 
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The thing is, despite PSP selling well hardware wise it's the opposite with regards to their software sales data. Probably because of UMD initially and pirating the games becoming too easy around halfway through its lifecycle. To combat that Sony forced the Vita to have proprietary memory cards but the whole thing just backfired.

Sony just can't win sadly in the portable realm.
Was that the reason for the proprietary memory? I thought it was just a money grab.
 

MagnesG

Banned
Was that the reason for the proprietary memory? I thought it was just a money grab.
That too as well as combating piracy, for example you can't stick in the memory card into PC to mess around with the files.

Also because the price of the memory card is high, pirates tend to avoid the system.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
The problem is there is no way Sony can compete with Nintendo when comes to portable market, we saw that with PSVita against 3DS and even PSP against DS.

While I agree, Sony could step their game up. While I loved my Vita it plainly didn't get the full court press from Sony. They could put together a portable that runs all PS4 and PS5 games at much lower resolutions if they really wanted. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. They even have the device manufacturing arm in place to do that. I am sure AMD would love to work with them putting together a custom SoC for that.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
While I agree, Sony could step their game up. While I loved my Vita it plainly didn't get the full court press from Sony. They could put together a portable that runs all PS4 and PS5 games at much lower resolutions if they really wanted. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. They even have the device manufacturing arm in place to do that. I am sure AMD would love to work with them putting together a custom SoC for that.
Like someone else said they don't even need to beat Nintendo. Despite of PSP not beating DS it was still very successful system but I'm guessing after failure of Vita Sony entirely given up on handheld market.
 
While I agree, Sony could step their game up. While I loved my Vita it plainly didn't get the full court press from Sony. They could put together a portable that runs all PS4 and PS5 games at much lower resolutions if they really wanted. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. They even have the device manufacturing arm in place to do that. I am sure AMD would love to work with them putting together a custom SoC for that.
Yeah, Sony's problem with the PSP and especially the Vita is that you can't rely on third party devs to pick up the slack on a second-place device. Either you do it yourself, like Nintendo does, or you design your handheld such that game ports from your main device are truly effortless.
 

Solarstrike

Member
Bought a PSVITA (Borderlands 2 Edition) last year on Ebay with some sealed games. It's a great system with a decent selection of games. Game streaming from the PS4/PS4 Pro isn't too bad either as long as you have a good ISP. I highly recommend some thumb grips because the defaults thumb pads sit way too low. The NYKO grip is a must as well. <3

 
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The dedicated handheld market will be pretty much dead once cloud gaming services build a bigger library and are more accessible, the Switch will be the last 50 million unit handheld.

I'm at a point where my phone offers a more enjoyable gaming experience than the Switch, all that's missing are the exclusives.

The Switch selling gangbusters this past year pretty much directly countermands
your point.
If you make games people want to play, people will buy whatever hardware is needed to play it. See: Animal Crossing.

Game streaming is shit and will continue to be shit for quite some time, until latency and bandwidth isn't a concern any more. Mobile game streaming? Unless you're standing in front of a mm wave 5G antenna or permanently latched to extremely fast WiFi, the experience will be awful.


And even when that all works fine, a lot of the time, there is no substitute for real buttons and analogue sticks. Touch screens and smartphone haptics are quite simply not good enough.

Sony could probably try another handheld, if they give it the support it needs and also don't hamstring it with some stupid decisions like overpriced proprietary memory cards.
 

Animagic

Banned
The Switch selling gangbusters this past year pretty much directly countermands
your point.
If you make games people want to play, people will buy whatever hardware is needed to play it. See: Animal Crossing.

Game streaming is shit and will continue to be shit for quite some time, until latency and bandwidth isn't a concern any more. Mobile game streaming? Unless you're standing in front of a mm wave 5G antenna or permanently latched to extremely fast WiFi, the experience will be awful.


And even when that all works fine, a lot of the time, there is no substitute for real buttons and analogue sticks. Touch screens and smartphone haptics are quite simply not good enough.

Sony could probably try another handheld, if they give it the support it needs and also don't hamstring it with some stupid decisions like overpriced proprietary memory cards.
I expect either Sony or Microsoft to shit out a switch competitor in a panic at some point in the future. I’ll jump all over it. Hybrid is the way.
 

SNG32

Member
They would have to do a hybrid of Ps4 and Ps5. They could do it where any ps4 port versions of the games play natively to the console and ps5 games play on the cloud. Similar to what they do with Phantasy star online 2 for Switch.
 

AGRacing

Gold Member
They should make it a PS4 standard on a hardware level... but do NOT explain it that way to the public. Release games separately... but with digital "cross buy" if they want to release a PS4 version. Make it digital only. If some devs want to make a PS4 version of their PS5 title then it would also be cross buy with the portable. Make it a portable PS4.. but be very very careful not to call it that explicitly..

With the 5nm process being a thing now I think they could pull it off with maybe a revised PS4 APU.

We've got low power chips and AMD doing graphics now for mobile.... all the key ingredients are there.... and it just makes no sense not to leverage the PS4 library to encourage people to buy for the "back catalog".
 

Agent X

Member
They should make it a PS4 standard on a hardware level... but do NOT explain it that way to the public. Release games separately... but with digital "cross buy" if they want to release a PS4 version. Make it digital only. If some devs want to make a PS4 version of their PS5 title then it would also be cross buy with the portable. Make it a portable PS4.. but be very very careful not to call it that explicitly..

With the 5nm process being a thing now I think they could pull it off with maybe a revised PS4 APU.

We've got low power chips and AMD doing graphics now for mobile.... all the key ingredients are there.... and it just makes no sense not to leverage the PS4 library to encourage people to buy for the "back catalog".

This is an excellent idea, but do you think it's feasible now to produce a portable PS4 at an affordable price? While this has been a dream for many people, some of them have also raised concerns about power consumption, battery life, and heat generation.

This will likely be possible at some point (if not now, then maybe 5-10 years into the future), but for it to have any major impact, it would have to be done within the next 2-3 years, while PS4 games are still being marketed to the mainstream public.
 
This will likely be possible at some point (if not now, then maybe 5-10 years into the future), but for it to have any major impact, it would have to be done within the next 2-3 years, while PS4 games are still being marketed to the mainstream public.
Sony could conceivably prolong the lifespan of the PS4 by releasing a miniaturized variant marketed principally towards the third world. In fact, a PSTV-style $100 PS4 might actually sell reasonably well in the developed world as a console for kids. That, combined with a PS4 Portable, might keep the PS4 ecosystem healthy enough to compete reasonably well with the Switch (since the Switch Pro is unlikely to be much more powerful than a PS4). Devs like EA and Capcom that already have engines up and running on the PS4 can continue to release Fifa and Monster Hunter at minimal expense.

Sony needed to kill the PS3 off as quickly as possible because its hardware was such a nightmare, but there's no reason they can't keep the PS4 around in some capacity like they did with the PS2. In fact, I think it makes business sense for them to do so: they have a lock on the top end of the console market with the PS5, but they're leaving money on the table if they don't compete in the low to mid range too.

Sony's major advantage over Nintendo, should it choose to exploit it, is that it isn't tied to the gimmick "Switch" form factor. It can undercut Nintendo's bill of materials by selling a bargain console without the battery and screen on the one hand and a dedicated handheld with video out on the other. The question is if they'll be able to miniaturize the PS4 within the next two or so years, as you say.
 
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The only way for Sony to compete with Nintendo and mobile gaming in general would be to make a handheld device. I live in Japan and therefore I know that long commute times in trains are not rare and very common, I also need 1 hour 45 minutes one way. Therefore there is not much time to play at home especially if you have children like me. So nearly to only free time many adults have is in the trains. Personally I hate mobile gaming and play around 1 hour per day at home, but I understand it that many people love it.
 

Trimesh

Banned
Sony could conceivably prolong the lifespan of the PS4 by releasing a miniaturized variant marketed principally towards the third world. In fact, a PSTV-style $100 PS4 might actually sell reasonably well in the developed world as a console for kids. That, combined with a PS4 Portable, might keep the PS4 ecosystem healthy enough to compete reasonably well with the Switch (since the Switch Pro is unlikely to be much more powerful than a PS4). Devs like EA and Capcom that already have engines up and running on the PS4 can continue to release Fifa and Monster Hunter at minimal expense.

The biggest problem is that if you want to make something directly compatible with the PS4 you have to use the same internal architecture, which was never designed for low power consumption. Effectively, the PS4 is an APU chip with some RAM, and it pulls about 100W when in-game. There is a practical upper bound on battery capacity of 100Wh, based on the fact that things that use larger batteries that can't be transported on passenger aircraft. So once you take that 100W and add whatever the screen is going to take you are going to end up with very short runtime (I.E. < 1h even if you use the largest possible battery).

For comparison, the Switch has a 16Wh battery and lasts about 2.5h even in full power mode. Power consumption is also why the PS Vita ended up with a completely different internal architecture (ARM Cortex M9 + PowerVR SGX) from the PS3 despite the fact it would have been highly preferable from a porting point of view to keep them compatible.
 

ripeavocado

Banned
Portable consoles have no future, Switch is it successful because it is portable, a new PlayStation portable will be ignored by most, in fact the closes thing to the Switch was the PS Vita not the 3DS and we all know how many Vitas have been sold.
 
The biggest problem is that if you want to make something directly compatible with the PS4 you have to use the same internal architecture, which was never designed for low power consumption. Effectively, the PS4 is an APU chip with some RAM, and it pulls about 100W when in-game. There is a practical upper bound on battery capacity of 100Wh, based on the fact that things that use larger batteries that can't be transported on passenger aircraft. So once you take that 100W and add whatever the screen is going to take you are going to end up with very short runtime (I.E. < 1h even if you use the largest possible battery).

For comparison, the Switch has a 16Wh battery and lasts about 2.5h even in full power mode. Power consumption is also why the PS Vita ended up with a completely different internal architecture (ARM Cortex M9 + PowerVR SGX) from the PS3 despite the fact it would have been highly preferable from a porting point of view to keep them compatible.
Yeah, I'm no expert at this stuff. Sony may well have cut itself off from the handheld market indefinitely by opting for x86. I don't know if there's some way with technological advances to get the power draw under control while maintaining compatibility, but I guess even if they were able to do that the Switch and its successors would always perform better as handheld devices due to their architecture being designed for efficiency.

If so, I think it's likely the Japanese AA market is going to transition entirely to Switch. That'll be a real sea change, since even during the Wii/3DS years Nintendo was never able to truly dominate that sector.
 

Trimesh

Banned
Yeah, I'm no expert at this stuff. Sony may well have cut itself off from the handheld market indefinitely by opting for x86. I don't know if there's some way with technological advances to get the power draw under control while maintaining compatibility, but I guess even if they were able to do that the Switch and its successors would always perform better as handheld devices due to their architecture being designed for efficiency.

If so, I think it's likely the Japanese AA market is going to transition entirely to Switch. That'll be a real sea change, since even during the Wii/3DS years Nintendo was never able to truly dominate that sector.

You could probably win a bit more runtime - IIRC, the PS4 chips were fabbed using a 28nm process so there are likely power savings to be had by going to a smaller node, although it's getting somewhat into diminishing returns compared to things like the 90nm->45nm scaling that was used in the PS360 era. I'm sure nobody wants headlines like "My PS4 portable burnt my house down" anyway...
 

Agent X

Member
Sony could conceivably prolong the lifespan of the PS4 by releasing a miniaturized variant marketed principally towards the third world. In fact, a PSTV-style $100 PS4 might actually sell reasonably well in the developed world as a console for kids. That, combined with a PS4 Portable, might keep the PS4 ecosystem healthy enough to compete reasonably well with the Switch (since the Switch Pro is unlikely to be much more powerful than a PS4). Devs like EA and Capcom that already have engines up and running on the PS4 can continue to release Fifa and Monster Hunter at minimal expense.

I agree, and I think that might be the next step in the evolution of PS4. I'd like to see an inexpensive, compact version of the console, similar to what the PSTV was intended to be. They probably won't be able to get it as small as PSTV anytime soon, but if they could ever reduce the size so that it's comparable to the later versions of the PS2 or Wii, that would be quite a feat.

The biggest problem is that if you want to make something directly compatible with the PS4 you have to use the same internal architecture, which was never designed for low power consumption.

Sony may well have cut itself off from the handheld market indefinitely by opting for x86. I don't know if there's some way with technological advances to get the power draw under control while maintaining compatibility, but I guess even if they were able to do that the Switch and its successors would always perform better as handheld devices due to their architecture being designed for efficiency.

Yes, that's the issue that I was trying to get at earlier. This might be why Sony started promoting Remote Play on PS Vita as a method of playing PS3 & PS4 games on a portable. They now have Remote Play on computers and mobile devices. This might be the only feasible way to play "portable" PS4 & PS5 games in the near term. It's obviously not as elegant as Nintendo's versatile single-device approach with the Switch, but it's about all they can do without abandoning their existing home consoles and starting from scratch (which is what Nintendo did). This was easy for Nintendo to accomplish with few repercussions, subsequent to the relatively low sales of the Wii U, but would be a massive kick in the teeth for Sony's PS4/PS5 customers.
 

lachesis

Member
At this point, I would settle with OC’ed Vita with 1080p oled screen, proper L2/R2 button and Micro SD support with 1080p Streaming/remote play.

I would definitely buy it for 2-300 bucks for remote play purpose. Also it would support existing Vita/psp/ps classics library... and ps now support would be good.
 

UnNamed

Banned
PS4GO

PS4 library, 200GB SSD, 1080p OLED screen, Digital Library transfers, discs dont, supports vita games(but not advertised), no HDMI(USB-C display out), interchangeable 5 hour battery.
The problem is not what you desire, is how much are you willing to pay for the things you desire.
 

Pallas

Member
Never got the Vita but I loved my old PSP unit. Honestly Sony should just release a retro handheld that has complete digital access to PS1/PS2/PSP(maybe Vita as well?) games that can be purchased. Just update the firmware from time to time, no need to make games for it.
 

Agent X

Member
Never got the Vita but I loved my old PSP unit. Honestly Sony should just release a retro handheld that has complete digital access to PS1/PS2/PSP(maybe Vita as well?) games that can be purchased. Just update the firmware from time to time, no need to make games for it.

This would essentially be the type of device that lachesis lachesis described a few posts above yours, or what I posted about in this post a few years ago.

Agent X said:
While I think both the "Super Vita" or "Portable PS4" have potential, I'll go with the "Super Vita" scenario for now. Keep in mind as you read this, almost everything could apply to a "Portable PS4" as well, with some slight adjustments (depending on how Sony chooses to evolve backward compatibility on the "standard" PS4).

  • The system should be about the same size as the existing PS Vita. Maybe slightly larger. I don't think it should be as large as the Switch.
  • Battery life should be comparable to the existing Vita.
  • The system needs to include a docking cradle with connectors for AC adapter, HDMI out, and one or two USB 3.0 ports. The USB ports could be used to connect USB flash drives, external hard drives, or controllers. Oh, and maybe a USB Wi-Fi adapter (more on this later).
  • Detachable controls like the Switch Joy-Cons? Don't bother. While this is a nice feature of the Switch, it's not essential. The "Super Vita" (or "PS4 Portable") would be able to use external controllers anyway.
  • Keep the built-in controls like the existing Vita, but add L2/R2 triggers (analog, of course) and L3/R3 click to the thumbsticks. The front touch screen will stay, but...
  • Lose the rear touch pad if it means saving manufacturing costs and increasing comfort and durability. Yes, this means a few key Vita games might be rendered incompatible (if they're not patched), but I'm looking at the bigger picture.
  • The standard external controller would be none other than the venerable DualShock 4. Why mess with success? 60 million people already have at least one. Pair it to the system using the included dock, and you're good to go.
  • So, about that dock...it's a great way to output up to 1080p to your TV, using the HDMI port. But did you know that you could also purchase an inexpensive Wi-Fi adapter to stream your games and movies from the portable unit to your TV without having to physically attach it to the dock?

As far as game compatibility goes:

  • The system should be compatible out of the box with all downloadable PS1, PSP, and PS Vita games. (If they "lose the rear touch pad", though, then some Vita games might be incompatible, unless they're patched or an optional "rear touch pad attachment" is created.)
  • Since this system is considerably more powerful than the classic Vita, it now has enough muscle to play downloadable PS2 games, too.
  • Remote Play can be used to play games from a PS4 in the same house, now with higher fidelity.
  • You could also play PS3 and PS4 games through PlayStation Now.
  • If we're going with the "Portable PS4" scenario, then the system could also play downloadable PS4 games directly. PS4 Blu-ray games could be installed from either an external Blu-ray drive attachment (for the docking cradle), or from an actual PS4 system on the same network that is registered to the same PSN account.
 
One workaround for the Vita rear touchpad would be to use L2/R2 to toggle the front (and only) touchpad to "rear touchpad mode." This should work perfectly since no games have been released that use both L2/R2 and the rear touchpad.
 
Because Sony killed the Vita.
No, they killed official support. The Vita is loved in the homebrew scene, and for good reason...it's a beast and OLEDs especially have fantastic screens. It might not be as powerful as the Switch, but that came out 6 years later, so that's not exactly surprising.
 

Agent X

Member
One workaround for the Vita rear touchpad would be to use L2/R2 to toggle the front (and only) touchpad to "rear touchpad mode." This should work perfectly since no games have been released that use both L2/R2 and the rear touchpad.

Good idea. This is similar to what PlayStation TV does for Vita games that utilized the touch screen or rear touch pad.

There might be an issue for games that need simultaneous use of front touch and rear touch.
 
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