Third time's the charm, am I right? The PS Vita may be more powerful but the 3DS was just the more fun console. You cant really replace fun with hardware power. The PSP still had some of its own merits but the PS VIta struggled with having any sort of identity that didnt feel like an accessory to the consoles.
Sony has never given their consoles much identity of their own. They're the only ones without a clear-cut, consistent mascot, and they've always treated PlayStation more like a general entertainment machine that happens to play video games than an actual video game system. PSVita could have been treated like the Switch before the Switch, if they had just given it easy TV out support. And then they managed to screw that up in a bigger way than any of us could have ever thought possible - the first model literally does have a TV out port, but the cable was never released, there was no support for Dualshock 3/4 controllers, and then the PS Vita TV was a total laughingstock that couldn't play a big chunk of the library... unless you hacked it. They went full, and I mean
full fucking retard.
At least the Switch was a "bold" move to see how a hybrid console would work and keep both markets reasonably satisfied and it seems to pay off for the most part.
Switch is more or less the logical conclusion to game consoles. Even Sir Clive Sinclair talked about the future of personal computers being fully portable with no compromises in the future, which is what the Switch is. He talked about this
in 1985.
It's a little baffling that PlayStation and Xbox have absolutely no portable version, nor even a component for playing portable games other than awful cloud streaming via your phone. Graphical quality has stagnated for ages, and in an era where even new iGPUs can max out early 8th gen games, the concept of a stationary home console is obsolete. It will be perplexing if the PlayStation 6 and/or the fifth Xbox are stationary machines. Shit, all Microsoft would need to do is chop one of their controllers in half, churn out some Surface tablets with magnets on the sides where you can attach the controllers, and whammo bammo, you've got a Switch-style Xbox. I'm sure by 2028, they'll have tablets that could run better than the Series S, and that'll be the next generation of Xbox.
Sony still has nothing. They squandered the PSVita. They barely advertised the thing, poorly supported it, and even pulled it for retail years and years before games quit being made. No joke, I thought it was dead and buried in 2015, but then I hack it and find out there were like four more years worth of games released for the thing. Quality ones, too. I just quit checking Vita's storefront, so I never heard about them, and didn't see anyone discussing them online.
I've gotta be honest here: I freakin' loved the PSP and PSVita when they were current. Still do. I liked them more than the DS & 3DS line, even. The screens were excellent, the variety of games was massive, and they just felt good to play. They even seemed to be more durable than the DS family, which was remarkable. But, while Sony did do a reasonably good job supporting the PSP, they treated the Vita almost like they were embarrassed of it. I cannot fathom why. But, like
@SSj_Ness said:
I originally wanted a Vita successor but it's clear now it'd be trash, just like PS5.
I wouldn't trust a third portable PlayStation, either. Not with the direction Sony's been headed. I don't even have a clue if we'll actually see one as the PlayStation 6. The whole brand is getting laid to waste. PlayStation is currently where the Walkman was in 2004: a boomer brand with a large following that remembers when the name meant something, who are scrambling to pretend like the iPod isn't completely eviscerating the Walkman, cursing it to the annals of history. The Walkman brand still exists, and in fact, a new one just came out this month:
https://archive.is/aU9GB
The new Walkman is a low-end Android device that's designed around being a touchscreen MP3 player and costs a fortune. The article states that it
starts at $818, but there's also a $3700 model. For a fuckin' Android-based MP3 player. This is the direction Sony takes their most flagship brands when they become obsolete, and this is the future of PlayStation. What a joke. What a tragic fucking joke of a company. The big three in gaming will soon be Nintendo/Microsoft/Valve, and Sony will eventually be relegated to Epic Games-tier third party support, with "prestige" PlayStation-branded PCs that'll cost an arm and a leg for aging idiots to lap up while coping with the fact that their favorite brand has a pulse on par with a penny battery.
