Summary
- While the PS Vita wasn’t a huge success for Sony, it nearly beat the Nintendo Switch to the punch by six years.
- The Switch was revolutionary for merging handheld and home consoles in a hybrid system, but the Vita’s dev kit had a similar function.
- Unfortunately, it was removed for the retail release.
The Nintendo Switch was a revolution for handheld consoles. Not only is it an evolution of past systems like the PSP, DS, and Game Boy, but it can also be docked and used as a traditional home console.
This was such a huge step forward, causing an unprecedented boom in the handheld market, inspiring the Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, and Lenovo Legion Go just to name a few.
But, as reported by Eurogamer, Sony nearly beat Nintendo to the punch by six years.
Related
Someone Got Tears Of The Kingdom Running On PS Vita “Just Because”
A Nintendo exclusive running on PC and being streamed to a PS Vita. Now that’s what I call crossplay.
Speaking to Kinda Funny in his first interview since leaving PlayStation, former executive Shuhei Yoshida revealed that the Vita dev kit originally had a video output that allowed it to connect to screens like a TV or monitor, much like the Nintendo Switch can do in docked mode. However, this was cut for the retail version.
“It was really a bad idea,” Yoshida said. “The development team removed that feature just to save a few cents of cost.”
Sony Left The Handheld Market After The PS Vita For 12 Years
Despite being a cult favourite handheld in retrospect, the PS Vita didn’t sell very well (only 10-15 million units versus the 80 million that the PSP sold). And so, PlayStation moved away from the handheld market altogether.
That is until two years ago, when it introduced the PS Portal, a streaming device that allows you to play games from your PS5 via remote play. Whereas the Vita nearly beat the Switch to the punch, the PS Portal takes a completely different approach from Nintendo, serving as a companion to the main home console as opposed to a versatile alternative.
It appears to be doing well for Sony, selling two million copies in just a year, but it’s interesting to imagine what could have been had the PS Vita kept that video output function. Perhaps it would have been a revolutionary, historic console, as the Switch became almost overnight.
