Vita was technically impressive, far more capable than the DS. I’ve got an OLED Vita and I’m amazed how nice it still looks.
But the Vita inevietably lost to Nintendo because it struggled with popularity, and therefore struggled with number of games made for it. It’s a catch 22.
If Sony can make a portable that plays all your PS5 library (without needing to buy any of it again) then they might actually be on a winner.
The Vita was a 3DS competitor, not a DS competitor. They kind of tried to outgimmick Nintendo with this one, unsuccessfully, I might add, because they didn’t build the system around these features, but slapped them on in such a way that developers and players could just ignore them.
The PS5 controller is somewhat of a descendant of this device, although its features are a bit better supported - and it would be trivially easy to integrate them into a handheld.
As for processing power, they need to find a way to get the same CPU power as a base PS5 and enough GPU power for somewhere around 1080p (since going any lower would render many games designed for the home console unplayable) into a cost-, heat, space- and power-efficient package. Most of this work is on AMD, Sony just has to package it. Maybe they can get away with a system that simply forces a lower output resolution for existing games so that less GPU power is needed - or they wait long enough for it to be possible to miniaturize a full-fat PS5 into a portable device. I think the latter is unlikely though, at least within a time frame that would allow for a PS5P to coexist with the PS5 instead of the PS6.
Vita was technically impressive, far more capable than the DS. I’ve got an OLED Vita and I’m amazed how nice it still looks.
But the Vita inevietably lost to Nintendo because it struggled with popularity, and therefore struggled with number of games made for it. It’s a catch 22.
If Sony can make a portable that plays all your PS5 library (without needing to buy any of it again) then they might actually be on a winner.
The Vita was a 3DS competitor, not a DS competitor. They kind of tried to outgimmick Nintendo with this one, unsuccessfully, I might add, because they didn’t build the system around these features, but slapped them on in such a way that developers and players could just ignore them.
The PS5 controller is somewhat of a descendant of this device, although its features are a bit better supported - and it would be trivially easy to integrate them into a handheld.
As for processing power, they need to find a way to get the same CPU power as a base PS5 and enough GPU power for somewhere around 1080p (since going any lower would render many games designed for the home console unplayable) into a cost-, heat, space- and power-efficient package. Most of this work is on AMD, Sony just has to package it. Maybe they can get away with a system that simply forces a lower output resolution for existing games so that less GPU power is needed - or they wait long enough for it to be possible to miniaturize a full-fat PS5 into a portable device. I think the latter is unlikely though, at least within a time frame that would allow for a PS5P to coexist with the PS5 instead of the PS6.