Will Sony make another handheld?

PiKe · 14 Jul 2017 at 23:26

With Sony having a presence in the handheld market for some years now, it's difficult to imagine that come the next generation, there may not be one.

I still rate the Vita highly, I know it's not necessarily been a commercial success for Sony, but stick a Nintendo badge on it and it would have sold like hotcakes. The first party titles are amazing, I'm playing through Uncharted and sometimes forget that it's a handheld that I'm playing it on.

Would anyone else like to see another Vita or equivalent released? Maybe something Tegra powered would do the job seeing as Nintendo can make a mainstream console from a mobile chipset.

darkgen · 15 Jul 2017 at 08:22

I suspect mobile phone gaming has wrecked the handheld console market unfortunately. Shame as I thought the PSP was amazing when it was released.

cheesyboy · 15 Jul 2017 at 08:33

darkgen said:
I suspect mobile phone gaming has wrecked the handheld console market unfortunately. Shame as I thought the PSP was amazing when it was released.

Tell that to nintendo

arcon33 · 15 Jul 2017 at 08:38

darkgen said:
I suspect mobile phone gaming has wrecked the handheld console market unfortunately. Shame as I thought the PSP was amazing when it was released.

Unfortunately this is the case, mobile phones have made handheld consoles redundant with there cheap games off the app stores, I had the vita and thought it was a great piece of tech with so much untapped potential, especially with the ps4 compatibility but Sony seem to have washed there hands with it, I actually enjoyed uncharted on vita more than Uncharted 4 which I'm currently playing through :eek:

Although I think nintendo will carry on doing well with there handheld consoles so long as they keep there exclusive's (which they seem to be worryingly moving away from with the Mario franchise on mobile platforms)

darkgen · 15 Jul 2017 at 12:35

cheesyboy said:
Tell that to nintendo

I'm not sold on the Switch ... yet.

malachi · 15 Jul 2017 at 12:57

Nope, Sony have given up on the handheld market. Their focus is now VR and 4K.

Wilko_Dog · 15 Jul 2017 at 13:05

darkgen said:
I'm not sold on the Switch ... yet.

Millions of people are .. including me, epic console !

panthro · 20 Jul 2017 at 13:00

Just been playing Street Fighter X Tekken on my Vita. I love it, the OLED screen, the button layout, the graphical output, remote play etc. It's a fantastic system and hard to believe it's been out for over 5 years now. It's a shame that Sony didn't give it the support it deserved.

dalehitchy1 · 20 Jul 2017 at 13:21

I loved my vita (though the cards were too expensive)

I still think it could have been a success of Sony pushed it more. Sony looked as if they gave up not long after it certainly out.

I also think the remote connect is one the best features. Don't know why they didn't show off that feature more.... They could have even come out with a cheaper version minus all the parts and leave only what is needed for remote connect.

It wasn't a commercial success because Sony didn't want it to be it seems to me

x-st · 20 Jul 2017 at 15:30

I feel like Sony should try again, because mobile/tablet gaming vs gaming on a dedicated portable occupy different spaces, but they won't because of the shrinkage of the market for dedicated portables despite their different audiences. Logically the development costs for a portable should be smaller which would be attractive in these days of years of development and multi-million costs, but again fewer people buy the games so the point is moot.

The sensible thing for Sony to do would be to make a portable which could play all the PS2, PS1 and possibly PS3 games and then make a supreme effort to put all those classic games on the PSN (although licensing!). A portable PS2 would sell incredibly well I'd imagine as long as it had decent control sticks and four shoulder buttons.