www.ign.com/articles/2018/05/23/playstation-still-experimenting-with-portable-gaming

That's a shift to what Andrew House said about portables being limited. What do you guys think?

Nice to see you're back.

Dear Sony,

Hi there. I'm a gamer who has enjoyed your last two attempts to penetrate the portable market. That's an understatement. Your first try at this ended up being my favorite portable console ever. And your second was my favorite of the generation.

But for God's sake give it up. It's not going to happen. I'm as sad about it as you are.

All the best,

Luchalma

They will definitely try again, the portable market is still quite large, although it seems slightly diminished due to the growth of the mobile industry. There's still money to be made in it tho and It'd be nice to see someone challenging nintendo in the handheld sphere again. If not sony, then maybe microsoft. It's definitely going to be tough, but never say never.

@luchalma Why should they give it up? The vita was a failure but the original PSP sold like 80+ million and was a huge success, I think more competition in the handheld market is good.

@liquiddragon: What does that have to do with the topic???

Why bother? The Vita was DOA right Enomoto? Everyone should just get a Switch and be happy!

So they're making a phone?

@darknorth: Where did you get that from the article?

“In my opinion, rather than separating portable gaming from consoles, it’s necessary to continue thinking of it as one method to deliver more gaming experiences and exploring what our customers want from portable. We want to think about many options.”

To me that sounds like they're looking at something akin to a streaming box. It echos what everyone (Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA) have all said this year. They're all looking towards streaming as being the future of gaming. I could see Sony putting out something that's a low powered handheld device that streams from either your home console or their own networked services as well as doing it on phones.

I don't think I can see them making a Switch style platform, though I wouldn't be shocked if they're spending some R&D money on it to investigate the possibility.

Probably from this line here that specially mentions phones

It's not clear if Kodera is thinking of reversing that approach, or if his focus is more on smartphones and the likes of PlayLink games, which connect portable devices to the PS4.

@luchalma: That doesn't mean Sony will give up on a alleged third portable since Andrew House's departure.

Exclusive Erogė games on VITA 2.

@soulcake: That's almost funny the first time haha

while i don't doubt they're capable of making excellent hardware- i think it'd be hubris supreme if sony thinks they can capitalize on the good vibes coming off the switch.

that's a very nintendo-specific success story- and unless sony had a serious library of locally running (read: not ps now) games available day 1- i think it'd get choked out. now if you had a 200-300 handheld that could dock into tv mode and could run ps1 - ps4 games (pipe dream), i'd be interested.

It's also one that people are already starting to question since they launched the thing with two of their biggest hitters and already have people asking "So what's next?". If you've no interest in Smash, then it's already turning into little more than an indie machine, which is fine, nothing wrong with that, but not the rocket to the moon that it looked to be in the first few months of it's release.

If I can play Dissidia on it I'll buy it. Been seriously thinking about picking up a Vita since my PSP stopped working when not plugged in.

Easy to imagine they'd look at the Switch, look at their PS4 remote play stuff on Vita, and then start having dangerous thoughts lol.

Another place to digitally age my SRPGs.

Do it Sony! Even if I don't buy the thing and/or it flops, competition always benefits the consumer.

Just make sure it can connect to a TV, use SD cards and not proprietary and overpriced storage, and have Atlus put Persona 5 Golden/FES/Portable/HD-er Remix on it, and it'll do just fine.

Whatever it takes for them to make more Patapon games.

A bit late for a April fools joke guys...

Here's the thing: I enjoyed the PSP quite a bit AND I enjoyed the Vita quite a bit. I would even go as far as to say the Vita was a better handheld than the 3DS.

Sounds to me they realize how close they came to having a Switch of their own and are kicking themselves.

Sony tends to copy its competitors a lot. Not too surprising here.

@slag: Nor should it be new but some people don't seem to think so.

I liked the PSP. I liked the Vita.

I don't know why, but I just don't trust Sony to make a Switch-style console.

I'd be interested in a Sony competitor to the Oculus Santa Cruz. that would be interesting.

Honestly I feel like Sony is just planning to provide more games/apps to the mobile market rather than a new gaming focused handheld. Like I'm shocked that there hasn't been a PSVR branded phone vr app ala Google Carboard yet.

The success of the switch probably reenergized them to take another look

Wouldn’t be surprised at all if the next gen systems going forward has switch like functionality

@michaelkennedy: We'll just have to wait and see. Nothing is set in stone yet.

@mrfluke: In Japan, it overtakes the PS4 in that region.

It needs to run x86 and be almost immediately compatible with existing PS4 games, devs should only have to patch and scale the games down with publishers releasing a physical copy with the card/whatever.

And if it has retarded memory card pricing then it's not worth releasing.

I hope they smash it out of the ball park, but its hard to imagine it taking off. What makes the switch great is it is Nintendo's main platform and there handheld in one. I honestly though the Switch would be a flop though so i could be wrong. I feel like Nintendo's games fit better on a portable. I liked my psp, but i really dont want to play God of War or Gran Turismo on it.

With the increased talk of streaming stuff recently combined with the success of the Switch I can see why they’d be looking at it. I actually think they messed up by not pushing remote play on the Vita more at the launch of the PS4, it’s a really cool feature that I still use occasionally although most games have stopped supporting it with specific vita control options.