I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what I want to play lately, so I thought a good solution would be to play some nostalgic games. Perhaps my favorite game from my childhood, and while watching a very fun speedrun of Ratchet and Clank in this year’s Summer Games Done Quick, I quickly concluded that this was the game I wanted to revisit. After all, it’s been a while, and despite getting straight to the final boss, I’ve never actually managed to beat the game, so I wanted to give myself a challenge and finish it.
I still own my PS2 and its original copy, but I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of setup, not to mention the lack of modern luxury of rest modes on the PS4 and PS5. Luckily, I also own the HD collection of the first three games for the PS Vita – remember that old thing? – and that seemed like the best way to go. It meant I could just lie on the couch, or take it to bed, pick it up bit by bit, or even play it on the go. I haven’t played my Vita in a while, and buying the console was arguably a big mistake, but as I played through Ratchet & Clank, I couldn’t help but think… Sony should make another game like this.
Manage Cookie Settings
Yes, I know it didn’t sell well, with an estimated 16 million units sold in total, a far cry from the PlayStation Portable’s 80 million. But it was certainly ahead of its time, a console that could play intensive, home console-like games, with an OLED screen and even just two analog sticks. It was the Nintendo Switch before the Switch, just without the, you know, Switch element. There were other problems, too, one of the biggest of which was that there weren’t that many games for it, at least not in the West (there were a lot of Japanese exclusives that I was sadly unable to play due to the language barrier).
We all know that Sony uses big first-party games like God of War, Spider-Man, and Horizon as system sellers, or at least as part of selling the system’s brand. It’s a diverse portfolio that makes people think “oh yeah, that’s a Sony game, even if it’s not strictly a first-party game.” The PS Vita doesn’t have a lot of those games. It has LittleBigPlanet spin-offs, Uncharted spin-offs, and even one of the best games from the Japanese studio, Gravity Rush, but there aren’t enough hits to make it a must-buy for a wider audience.
Watch on YouTube
You can only wonder if now is a better time for a console like this. Sony has clearly considered returning to the handheld console market, otherwise what would the PlayStation Portal even exist for? But Portal is just… good! It’s good. It’s not a dedicated handheld console with fun, cheaper-for-developers double-A games, but a tool that lets you stream PS5 games to what is essentially a smartphone while you’re on the toilet, without having to use your smartphone.
But it’s really expensive to make games right now, and a dedicated console to narrow down the scope of games seems to be something the industry almost needs right now (the Switch is one, though not all developers use it that way). I’d love to be able to play some of Sony’s new first-party games, or even the upcoming Astro Bot, on the PS Vita 2, so I can sit back on my couch and enjoy some classic 3D platformers without worrying about blurry networks ruining my experience on Portal. Isn’t that the dream? To make life easy and comfortable?
I know that even if those rumors about a fully functional new PlayStation handheld come true, it won’t be a Vita 2, and it won’t be a fully functional Vita 2. I’m sure internal presentations will tout “synergies” with the PS5 for greater brand cohesion and all the annoying bullshit that capitalism invented at some point. What I really want, though, is to be able to play Ratchet & Clank (either from 2002 or 2021) on a little handheld and just relax.
