Video: 5 Ways PS Vita Was Ahead of Its Time

It would have been the greatest handheld ever if it had L2/R2. But it’s still probably my favourite without them.

Still have an original Vita and this thing is truly a beast for its time. The OLED screen looks fantastic in a lot of games. I especially appreciate it when playing with 2D games like any of the Vanillaware titles. Gravity Rush is still one of the best games this thing can offer in terms of exclusives. But one of the main reason why I still love the Vita until today is the amount of JRPG and quality indie games on the system.

Still playing and preferring my Vita over my Switch.

An absolutely amazing piece of kit. I just wish Sony had stuck with it for a bit longer.

@Lando_ how is the store looking these days? (Assuming you are from Europeu as well). Tried to find it online but no joy, I was thinking about getting a Vita as they are stupid cheap in Portugal at the minute and because I heard Chrono Trigger/Cross are on it

If the damn memory cards weren't so expensive and more devs actually made games for it I reckon the vita would have sold a massive amount more than it did.

Still play mine on the regular on breaks at work! I don't see anything ever replacing it as my favorite handheld at this point. 30 minutes of Vita a day keeps the Switch away!

It was light years ahead.

Voice chat, folders, free local save backup. We have gone backwards with the Switch.

With SteamDeck we will finally move a step forward with handhelds.

The vita was a better system than psp in terms of power.looks.oled screen.2 thumbs button.but memory card and more first and third party support wasnt enough.word up son

It should have had HDMI out, L2 R2 buttons, and SD card storage

@MarcurShaw

The Vita store is still a mess, unfortunately. Hardly anything gets updated, there are often problems with downloads and many games are missing screenshots and even thumbnails. The only thing I like more about Nintendo is, how much love they put into keeping their shops organized. Even the Wii U has still a cleaner store than the Vita.

@Lando_ shame. Thanks, man!

The Vita's OLED screen was great, and I liked how it was decently more powerful than the 3DS, but the annoying back touchscreen, HORRIBLE proprietary memory cards, lack of triggers holding back remote play, iffy remote play implementation in general (I never got it to work well, despite having high-speed wifi and being able to stream games on my PS4), and the almost complete absence of first-party support after a year or two really cratered its potential. I also resent how Sony stopped allowing third-parties to hold sales for their games on the platform. It really feels like they were ashamed of it and tried to sweep it under the rug at some point.

IMO the "bubble" UI is the best handheld user interface I've seen to date. Also loved how easy it was to set custom wallpapers and even play videos on the system.

There were a number of things that could have made the PSVita a huge success.

1. As many have said mSD memory cards, why couldn't they use them like everyone else. Cheap to replace and as fast as the Sony proprietary cards.

2. Invest in more first party IP's. Seriously they have so many amazing IP's, use them.

3. PSone and PSP games. Yes, they were there but a very limited selection. Licence Dino Crisis, the Spider-Man games, Ready 2 Rumble, Nightmare Creatures, OddWorld. and where was Metal Gear Acid? They had legendary titles.

4. And finally L2/R2 buttons. Yes, there was a rear touchpad but it was so difficult to use and, for me atleast, hit and miss. If the Switch Lite can have rear buttons on a system similar in form factor the Vita could have too. It would have made PS Remote Play much easier and a bigger selling point.

The PSVita could have been a massive success I believe with these features.

As someone who spends tens of hours every week using PSPlay to play with my DualSense on my Android phone, I really wish there was a new PlayStation handheld that had remote play functionality. The idea of having a few games I could play locally, and then the rest of my collection available in any room of my house, all on a device designed specifically for the task. I'm kinda tempted by the Steam Deck for this exact reason, but I'll miss the adaptive triggers, and by last piece of Valve hardware (the Steam Controller) just feels a bit cheap in comparison (even if I miss using a touchpad instead of a right stick for aiming)

It was ahead in so many was and stupidly backwards in one thing that killed it on arrival. Prohibitively expensive proprietary storage cards. That was a stellar k**k-up by Sony.
Yeah, back touch insted of l2 r2 triggers was also myopic.
Bought three oled ones and they are still rock solid.
Unlike some dudes in the comments, I enjoyed remote play on it within my wifi (actually, when at home I utilised its direct to ps4 wifi capability) and on foreign networks.

Shame the L2/R2 buttons were missing and only available as a 3rd party accessory option (and even then for only certain models) but other than that, the vita was a quality little machine.

@Yomogi The OLED is for the Vita Slim right?

@Slippship

Get on - it is the future... And not just about hardware, it is about access to games when away.

I have a Switch and I still find myself rushing home (or trying to SteamLink to my PC when away) because the game I want to play is not on it.

SteamDeck will have the best 3rd party support in Handheld history thanks to Steam.

Just imagine if Sony had made a Vita 2 to complete with the Switch...

@Agramonte I hope that the SteamDeck will meet or exceed your expectation. I think that many will be disillusionised by the size, the weigth, the games compatibility and the performance.

It's a nice device, but the price.. The console, the memory cards, even the games, sniffed out as collectors items from the start, never dropped much below rrp in the second hand market.

I actually regret buying one but that's totally on me. I just can not get into handheld gaming no matter how hard I try. It's a good device it just wasn't for me.

@Max_the_German yeah steam deck looks pretty cool, but like the original switch, it's too large to be comparable to 'pocket on the go' devices like the game boy, ds, psp series. Imo at least.

@Splat

I have an issue with 3D games on handheld.

When I look back on my DS collection, it was 90% 2D.

I have a Switch. But I rarely play it in handheld mode. 90% of the time it’s docked. 7% is table top mode next to my bed before I go to sleep using my pro controller, but only on certain nights. Handheld is 3%, like if I’m going somewhere where I know I’ll have to wait for an hour. And even then, when it’s not in the dock I’m playing SNES games on it. That’s the only time I even use those horrifically uncomfortable joycons.

I just can’t get around to 3D gaming on a small screen. The GBA to me was the best handheld ever. And it was the one I played the most. My SP never left my pocket unless I was charging it. I took it everywhere.

@Snake_V5 - The OLED screen is on the older model Vita, the revised Vita has a LCD.

@Shigurui Which would you say is the better model?

Still don’t understand why they threw in the towel so fast. Maybe because they were ahead of time with this handheld? So much potential looking back and seeing the success of the Switch (even with the hybrid appeal)

@Pusher2021 That’s simple to answer: nobody other than Nintendo gets handhelds. It’s not a question of being ‘ahead of its time’ when only 1-5% of handheld gamers want what the Vita offered that 3DS didn’t.
I love my Vita and still play it to this day but I’m in a tiny minority. Same as I was with my Game Gear. And my Neo Geo Pocket. We can all say ‘it does this better’ and ‘it does that better’ but the simple undeniable truth is that it doesn’t matter to the vast majority. Sony never got that. And by the looks of it with Steam Deck, Valve doesn’t either.

@Snake_V5 - I'd have to go with the OLED Vita, the LCD has slightly better battery life and I prefer the start/select buttons on that one but the screen isn't a patch on the original. The OLED just looks much nicer in action.

@RubyCarbuncle I'd say the difference is that the Deck is made by Valve. I'd compare it to the Steam Controller, which was a great prototype, good to use, but needed a later iteration which never came.

I doubt buying it will be a bad idea at all, just leave you wanting more that may never materialise

Sony keeping AAA style games off of it was its’ demise! Could have been onto Vita2 or Vita Pro right now! Oh and those memory cards…… why proprietary????? Had some amazing times tho.

@Snake_V5 As far as I remember the only real difference is the screen. They made some minor tweaks to the form factor (it's more rounded and plastic-y than the original model and looks more like a toy), but all the internals are identical, all they really changed was the screen to save money on production. Both models are great, but the OLED model is definitely superior.

@theheadofabroom I could see that, Valve kind of has a history of abandoning projects that don't immediately take off, but at least the Deck is super customizable. I'm honestly more curious to see what hackers and modders do with it when it's out in the wild than what Valve does. If nothing else, it should be an absolute beast for emulation.

@rastamadeus Ahead of its time, I mean, they used OLED back in the day (not the same OLED as it is now but still).

• I'm the same. Using older handhelds, even Game Boy with Tetris & PSP mostly for playing PES5. Revisited Metroid Fusion on DS & sometimes using my GB SP to play Pokemon Pinball and I don't even like Pokemon, but it's a good game imo. A friend of mine had a Game Gear, man, the thing chewed batteries like no other Steam Deck? Well maybe it can ...

@RubyCarbuncle

Steam Machine was redundant to the 120 Million users that had a Steam library. Many already had a home PC that played the exact same games. Nobody has a SteamDeck.

Nintendo made a video on what I am thinking about doing with Steam Cloud Saves - just replace the Switch Lite with a SteamDeck.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/12/new_nintendo_switch_trailer_shows_off_cross-save_functionality_with_pc_games

Now remember I only need to buy the game once with a SteamDeck and works with tons more games. If it works, It will be worth every penny.

@TheRedComet The SP was a cool little thing indeed. I love Sony but sometimes i think why didnt you just made a more powerfull PSP without all the gimmicks. You can use the money for more ram or something and just drop the weird memory cards.

Ah man. I miss my vita. My screen broke and don't know if I can get it fixed. I bought it on launch and made the mistake of buying the 1 with the sim card slot, coz never used it. 3G was pretty useless, well for me anyway.

Based article

the vita is amazing once youve hacked it

if it had L2 R2 and HDMI out it could have been the switch before the switch even existed

The problem is the game, psvita only receive side games, or worse, inferior port of it's console counterpart, while nintendo handheld console are getting their own games. With switch it's even better, nintendo only need to make one games for their handheld and console.

The only way sony can make successful handheld is if they're making portables ps4, so rather than making portables games, they can make ps4 games that can be played on their handheld. Since steam deck exist, I think it isn't impossible for sony to make ps4 portables.

Picked a pristine one up about 6 months ago and absolutely love it.

@GamerDad66 Just imagine if Sony had still supported the Vita after the PS4 juggernaut had taken off?

@Culjoseth Sony killed the thing before it had a chance to gain traction. Pulling AAA 1st dev support so soon into its life was a mortal body blow, leaving devs to look at it and wonder what the future held for a console that the manufacturer had given up on. Can anyone imagine Nintendo pulling 1st line support for the 3DS or Switch and just leaving it to 'indies'?

The other catastrophic problem was the price of the proprietary memory cards. Still an odd decision given Nintendo just using standard SD cards. Presume it was them thinking it that their system wouldn't get hacked...

Many people don't know that the Vita sort of does have L2, L3, R2, R3 buttons - they're mapped into quadrants of the rear touch pad but not all games supported it as you needed a Hori grip or double jointed fingers.

@wiiware Given the ridiculous size of the PS5, I wonder exactly how portable a new handheld from Sony would be? You'd need a backpack for the battery!

@sanderson72 Ps5 portable is no go but I think sony can make portable ps4, afterall steam can make steam deck, portables that more powerfull than ps4.

I don't know if there's market for that portables though (gamers bought switch for the exclusives & indies), steam deck will be a learning experience for the hardware makers.

@wiiware Yes, I think while it's possible to make a PS4 portable, the price and logistics of trying to get games onto such a device would be problematic.
Basic Steam Deck is about £350 (£100 more than a PS4) and comes with 64GB storage (about 1 to 2 blu-ray sized games installed?)
Sony would no doubt nobble the P4P with some inconvenient overpriced memory card/game cart solution and the price would just kill it when compared to the £200 Switch Lite.

@wiiware @sanderson72 I think a PS4 portable would be a pretty smart move. It comes with a library of games, the tech is old enough that when miniaturised it would still be reasonably priced, and a few years down the line there could be a pro version targeting the specs of the PS4 Pro, with, again, a library of games with optimised support.

Making a portable version you could cut a few corners by going for 720p, and only increasing to 1080p on the pro version, and you might be able to get away with smartly reducing a couple of key specs to run at those resolutions, and still have reduced loading times.

Given the PS5 using m.2 nvme drives, I can't see Sony going for proprietary expansion drives with future hardware, especially given the performance of μSD and the storage speeds the PS4 is designed around.

Great system, lots of potential, but unfortunately released at a poor time. Sony clearly felt it needed the PS4 to be more of a success than the PS3 and went all in on that machine at the expense of the handheld.

Love my Vita and still play it more than my Switch both are excellent but the Vita is so much easier to carry around when travelling plus I get trophies on there. I use the Switch docked 99% of the time.

Such a brilliant handheld! Still play mine when I can when I'm not too busy with the PS4 or 5. Would really love to see Sony make a new handheld. One between the PS4 and PS5 that is also even easier to develop for. Basically make the game for PS4 or PS5 and make it really easy to port over to the new handheld. Whenever I take a handheld away somewhere with me, I always choose the Vita over the Switch and 3DS.

It's a shame Sony didn't make a PS4 collection for some of the other Vita games. Someday those games will die off when the handheld stops working and when it's harder to get a replacement. Would like to see a collection made to keep them living on

@Agramonte steam deck is going to be ok and I'll def get one, but the problem will be games are not made for it so there will be a lot of games that won't run on it well enough to play Properly in about 2 years when everything is going for 1080ti as recommended specs. It won't have the horsepower even at 720p.
They needed to jam a proper laptop discreet version of the rtx 3080 in there and just charge extra. Or at least something better than the APU it's got. 1.6 tflops isn't going to cut it.

@Denni5m There will be plenty of games which don't require a 1080Ti. Most games that require it for acceptable performance at 720p aren't the games you'd want to be playing on a screen that small anyway.

@theheadofabroom yeah you are right there will be heaps of 2d and indie games that run fine.
But for me a handheld also has to be able to play games like dragon quest, valkyria Chronicles, wasteland 3, xcom. And in a couple years the min requirements for new games like that will be higher than what the steam deck can do.
This is my point, they should have just charged a few hundred extra and put a proper laptop graphics chip like the rtx 3070 or 3080. Then we would have the complete package.
It's still a cool device but it's a wasted opportunity to really do something great. They would have sold out anyway even at double the price, especially in today's crazy world.

@Denni5m I highly doubt that those games won't run at all in 2-3 years time. Between perpetual graphics card shortages, and performance being 'good enough' for most people, movement is slow for most of the market. If super-high-fidelity raytraced graphics aren't necessary for immersion, studios which target a large market share aren't going to be leaving the 1060 behind any time soon, because according to Steam hardware surveys, that level of hardware is still way too much of the market. If the 1060 can make 1080p, the Steam Deck will be fine at 720p.

@theheadofabroom the graphics card in the base PS4 can hardly run modern games and it's more powerful than the steam deck.
Im not even talking about ray tracing, just normal raster graphics will be an issue for it 2 years trust me. I get it you want it to be good, so do I, but the truth is that in 2 years they will be pretty much useless for the new games coming out that require a 1080 minimum specs. We will start to see these games later this year and early next where a base PS4 has absolutely no chance of running the game at 30fps even with everything turned down.
The point I'm making is, that they should have just charged extra and put a better graphics chip in it. You can't argue that it would have been better and still sold out surely?

@Denni5m I've got no skin in the game, I'm just speaking from a perspective of being part of the wider PC ecosystem. I think you'd be surprised at what will run at low settings at 720p. It won't look spectacular, but one thing PC does well at is scaling back (games will always be reviewed on high-spec machines so studios can make it look good on those, avoiding criticism they'd get releasing the low settings version on consoles).

The question of adding better graphics capabilities is difficult as they're using an APU. Without spending ridiculous money on R&D, you're not going to get better APU graphics performance, especially within an acceptable power budget (which effects both battery life and temperatures) so you'd be looking at discrete CPU and GPU, each with their own memory pools, as opposed to the APU with one common pool of ridiculously fast RAM, which should result in better real-world performance than the listed 1.6TF. as soon as you talk about splitting it out, costs and power budgets spiral, and you're no longer talking about a handheld device unless you're willing to pay > £1500, as a conservative estimate, and it's going to end up way heavier.

I have to salute Valve for making such a well-balanced piece of kit. And especially for releasing it at such a reasonable price. Hopefully in the future with APU advances and an end to the silicon shortages we'll see another iteration. Maybe bracketing this one with a lower cost version of similar performance, and a higher cost one with 2080 or similar performance.

@theheadofabroom I understand where you are coming from. I am a PC gamer as well which is why I think this device is woefully underpowered for this time in gaming. I see games like The Ascent which would have a hard time running in this at 720p or what about Forza Horizon 5, that REQUIRES a GTX 970.
So it's clear what will happen in about 2 years then if we already have games like this now. The industry is making a big leap now because of the new consoles and they aren't making games anymore that run on base PS4 specs.
I understand that it would be about double the price and heavier, but I would bet that it would still sell out anyway. Especially if it had a dock mode...
It's just a missed opportunity for them to take a large segment of the market.
It's going to be a hard sell for them in 2 years if it can't run all the new shiny games coming out.

@Denni5m If they haven't updated the specs on two years I'll agree. If you want something two to four times the price and heavier, which can dock to your TV, there's always a laptop