Sony may be working on a new portable gaming console.

zamardii12

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A recent job posting for Sony for a "Head of Mobile, PlayStation Studios" seems to suggest Sony is either looking at mobile gaming again, or something else...

"...the job listing is looking for someone to "Build and execute against a mobile 3-5yr business plan," meaning that Sony might be looking to make a new portable console to continue the legacy of the PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation Vita.

The job listing, which is looking to hire someone for a position in either San Mateo or Los Angeles, California, describes the ideal candidate as someone who could "Build and scale multiple game teams and product leaders to deliver against future title plans," with "a focus on successfully adapting PlayStation's most popular franchises for mobile."


Source: https://www.svg.com/381123/playstation-is-giving-portable-gaming-another-go



My thoughts: Mobile gaming is big. VERY big. Thoughts during the end of the PSP/3DS era were that a new portable console is really not that likely considering how big mobile app stores via the likes of Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store have gotten with in some case great mobile games. Also with smartphone saturation ever-growing the thought was that most people wouldn't want to carry two devices around. The continued success of the 3DS platform, and Nintendo's launch of the Switch Lite which is mobile-only would seem to suggest that there IS a market out there for a mobile platform that can deliver quality AAA games in a mobile setting. While mobile gaming on cell phones in my opinion have always leaned towards the casual side of gaming... there is a market for dedicated mobile gaming... for me touch screens on phones just don't a good game make. There is talk of Valve making a portable gaming machine, Tiger Electronics have re-released their shitty mobile gaming nostalgia games, and Sony recently back-tracked on their decision to end operations for the PS Vita's access to the PlayStation Store. For those that own a Vita and like it, you know that despite Sony conveniently pretending like the Vita has disappeared over the last 2+ years it's still going strong with games still being released on it despite Sony's lack of support for the platform.

Dedicated mobile gaming is alive and well. The Nintendo 3DS survived 9 and a half years of continued support as did Sony's PS Vita and PSP before that have a healthy lifespan. However terrible decisions regarding proprietary media among other things killed the Vita's success despite spending a fair amount of time being supported by Sony. I believe that dedicated mobile gaming has the potential to make a comeback IF done correctly. What would the strategy look like? I don't know, but with the fact that Nintendo seems to be gearing up for the release of a Switch Pro and simultaneously sell the mobile-only Switch Lite I don't see why Sony couldn't if done right do the same with the PS5 and a dedicated mobile console.
 
I dunno - with the way Sony treated my beloved Vita, I'm not sure if I'd support another Sony handheld...

With that said, I talk tough but easily get swayed by decent hardware and software so would likely get one (but begrudgingly). I'm hoping if they are planning a new handheld, they steal a page out of Nintendo's book and make it dock-able for use on a big screen ala Switch.
 
Maybe they realized the market is there, but their execution with the vita sucked?
 
The Vita was a great system that Sony barely supported. I'd rather play something on a Vita than a Switch and it was way more portable. That said, I don't really need or want a portable system anymore. I work from home and I'm only on long flights a couple times per year. There aren't many instances where I can't screw around on my phone for an hour to kill time, too. Hard pass for me at this point.
 
I loved the vita and it did have some really fun games like the Uncharted game, Freedom Wars, and a lot of new games from PS3 that could still be played on the Vita like Playstation all stars and the newest Sly Cooper. I think a beefed-up Sony handheld could have the potential to be a success, as long as they actually put some effort into it and support the console bc the Vita really was forgotten by Sony after a few years. They should also stray away from the handheld gimmicks at the time like the AR Camera games and probably not have detachable controllers like the Switch, but I think it should have HDMI capabilities like the Switch
 
Maybe they realized the market is there, but their execution with the vita sucked?

The VITA tried to be too powerful and to close to a console for a mobile platform and that's what it was a fail parade. The PSP failed as well. So did NeoGeo Pocket, Atari Lynx, Turbo Express, the list goes on and on. Basically only Nintendo has ever been able to make this work. The ones I mentioned were the least fail of everything else but they just don't work out. And this is leaving out the epic fail parade of portable PC gaming attempts, which LOL, just LOLOLOLOL.

The market is there but it's something a lot of companies miss. Your market is Asia, that's it. One of the reason Nintendo does so well with handhelds is they ignore markets that don't really count for handhelds, like America. See the catch is Nintendo designs it's handhelds for people who ride the train to work, then eat in the office in a company cafeteria, and then often spend time waiting for their train to go home for the night. In those situations handhelds really go off, and Nintendos focus on that is why they have been utterly able to crush the handheld market repeatedly.

The VITA, GameGear, et all failed to get that. They attempted full blown console style gameplay you could take with you, but that ignores who actually buys all these damn things and their usage model.
 
The VITA tried to be too powerful and to close to a console for a mobile platform and that's what it was a fail parade. The PSP failed as well. So did NeoGeo Pocket, Atari Lynx, Turbo Express, the list goes on and on. Basically only Nintendo has ever been able to make this work. The ones I mentioned were the least fail of everything else but they just don't work out. And this is leaving out the epic fail parade of portable PC gaming attempts, which LOL, just LOLOLOLOL.

The market is there but it's something a lot of companies miss. Your market is Asia, that's it. One of the reason Nintendo does so well with handhelds is they ignore markets that don't really count for handhelds, like America. See the catch is Nintendo designs it's handhelds for people who ride the train to work, then eat in the office in a company cafeteria, and then often spend time waiting for their train to go home for the night. In those situations handhelds really go off, and Nintendos focus on that is why they have been utterly able to crush the handheld market repeatedly.

The VITA, GameGear, et all failed to get that. They attempted full blown console style gameplay you could take with you, but that ignores who actually buys all these damn things and their usage model.
They would have had a lot more success if they ported/translated more of the asia/japan only games to the US market. Maybe not enough to make the vita really profitable, but it surely wouldn't have hurt. There are loads of great games that never made it to the US market, and it's a real shame. And then there are all the psp games that were ported, but you had to jump through hoops to get on the Vita (go through the ps3/4 store, or install the storage manager in windows...).
 
I dunno - with the way Sony treated my beloved Vita, I'm not sure if I'd support another Sony handheld...

With that said, I talk tough but easily get swayed by decent hardware and software so would likely get one (but begrudgingly). I'm hoping if they are planning a new handheld, they steal a page out of Nintendo's book and make it dock-able for use on a big screen ala Switch.

The thing is that if you look at the executive/decision-making structure of the PS3/PSP/Vita era you could see that all 3 platforms had very problematic weak-points that were decisions made mostly via ego than actual sense. Mark Cerny since coming on to spearhead PS4 and now PS5 hardware development made the Sony platform one of if not the easiest platforms to develop for. The PS3 was Sony getting way in and over themselves by spending billions on a CPU that nobody needed, and no developer spoke highly of; the PSP has a very healthy library of games and support for years and was definitely more successful than the Vita, and the Vita was Sony not understanding the ridiculousness of their own proprietary media problem. UMD/Memory Stick Duo with the PSP, and the outrageously prices Vita Memory Card that could literally be used nowhere else. The PS4 and PS5 under Mark Cerny's have opted for develop-friendly tools, and non-proprietary expansion possibilities with the PS4 and PS5 have use-replaceable inner hard drives while the Xbox One was un-upgradeable internally entirely (although that was solved via external hard drives). And now the Xbox Series Consoles utilize proprietary storage expansion cards for their consoles (albeit only for Xbox Series-specific features).

The dock-able console I believe is what Sony may be working on. Valve is working on a portable, Nintendo is about to unveil their Switch Pro, and Microsoft have gone all-in on mobile support via X-Cloud with their Game-Pass titles with many AAA games getting touch-screen control support. Let's also not forget that Sony are the only console game company that even released their own Virtual Reality headset, and are already developing their next generation VR headset. Microsoft was rumored to be working with Oculus back in the Xbox One days on VR, but nothing came of that, and Nintendo doesn't care at all about VR. So Sony I think with the insane success of the PS4 and now PS5 could very well be gearing up towards another dip into the portable gaming realm, and I am all for it.

I loved the vita and it did have some really fun games like the Uncharted game, Freedom Wars, and a lot of new games from PS3 that could still be played on the Vita like Playstation all stars and the newest Sly Cooper. I think a beefed-up Sony handheld could have the potential to be a success, as long as they actually put some effort into it and support the console bc the Vita really was forgotten by Sony after a few years. They should also stray away from the handheld gimmicks at the time like the AR Camera games and probably not have detachable controllers like the Switch, but I think it should have HDMI capabilities like the Switch

The Vita to this day in my option is a insanely capable and powerful machine. Sony chose to forget about it than fix it, and I think if Sony did what Nintendo is doing with the Switch by using Micro-SD expansion and not some proprietary media I think a portable Sony console could succeed. Asia would definitely be the strongest market for another Sony portable and I guarantee 100% it would sell well there. However at this moment in time with the pandemic, and people still not traveling as much would be maybe not the best time to execute a portable console release... with the exception of the Nintendo Switch Pro of course since that is a dual-purpose portable device.
 
I'm still surprised by my OG Vita is from 2011. It's sleek and modern looking with a very impressive screen. Even in 2021 you can get a lot of use for it if you're into emulation. The CFW scene really boosted in the last few years. You can even use a regular microsd card now instead of their overpriced garbage.

It's my dedicated mobile Tetris device, because of how great the d -pad is (still my favorite d-pad of any controller I've had so far.) It also has great standby battery life, I can leave it in sleep mode for months with little to no battery drain.
 
I'm still surprised by my OG Vita is from 2011. It's sleek and modern looking with a very impressive screen. Even in 2021 you can get a lot of use for it if you're into emulation.
Have you seen the price of Vita consoles on eBay lately? They sometimes sell for $300 in really good condition and seeing them for $200 is pretty common if you include some accessories and a game or two. They are definitely in-demand.
 
Have you seen the price of Vita consoles on eBay lately? They sometimes sell for $300 in really good condition and seeing them for $200 is pretty common if you include some accessories and a game or two. They are definitely in-demand.

No I haven't, that's pretty crazy. I spent $180 on Black Friday 2012 for my white vita bundle (included Assassins Creed, 4GB memory card, and I think a month of Playstation+?)
 
No I haven't, that's pretty crazy. I spent $180 on Black Friday 2012 for my white vita bundle (included Assassins Creed, 4GB memory card, and I think a month of Playstation+?)

Have you seen the price of Vita consoles on eBay lately? They sometimes sell for $300 in really good condition and seeing them for $200 is pretty common if you include some accessories and a game or two. They are definitely in-demand.

People scoop them up as emulation platforms all the time. There are even knockoffs made of them as well for that reason.
 
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