Sony's PlayStation Vita came out way back when in late 2011 in Japan and in early 2012 for the rest of the world, and at the time, the Vita was a powerhouse. It managed to offer up an OLED screen and hardware capable enough to run games like Uncharted on the go, but even still, the Vita never really took off in a big way. However, times have changed.
So, in this article, we'll tell you why Sony should release a PlayStation Vita 2 in 2023.
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A Different Market: Switch, Deck, and More
When the Vita was released, its only major competition was Nintendo's 3DS. Back then, portable gaming was very different. You weren't playing traditional console and PC games on the go, you were playing games built and designed specifically to run on low-powered mobile hardware.
The Vita, though, tried to change that by bringing what was at the time AAA console-quality games to a portable device. Now, it wasn't like you could simply play the latest console/PC game on Vita as it was more the case you'd see games designed specifically for Vita, but these games, like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, could definitely feel like console-quality on the go.
The market for that kind of portable experience has only gotten exponentially bigger since the time of the Vita. Since Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck have come out, gamers have gotten used to playing full-fat AAA games on the go, so it stands to reason that a new PlayStation portable might do a lot better now than it did before.
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More Powerful Hardware in Vita 2
As mentioned above, the PlayStation Vita was an extraordinarily powerful device for its time, but even still, it generally wasn't powerful enough to just run all the same games a console or PC could. Like, you wouldn't be playing Modern Warfare 3 on Vita, but you could play Black Ops: Declassified.
However, that could change today. With a much smaller screen and thus a lower resolution, it's entirely possible a Vita 2 in 2023 could just be able to run its own full-featured versions of console and PC games. Imagine if you could play The Last of Us on the go from a device that fits in your pocket. Imagine if you could boot up the latest Call of Duty anywhere.
Technology has come a long way since the early 2010s, and with devices like Steam Deck out there proving that AAA gaming is possible on the go, the sky's the limit for a PlayStation portable that would see developers build games specifically for its hardware, unlike Steam Deck that runs PC games.
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PlayStation Exclusives & Vita 2
It's no surprise that PlayStation has some of the best exclusives out there, so of course it's true that if Sony tasked its first-party developers with supporting a Vita 2 we'd get some amazing games, but there's more to the story than just that simple fact.
See, Sony has a huge library of PS4-exclusive games that gamers love. Whether it's Uncharted 4, Bloodborne, Horizon: Zero Dawn, or anything else, there are so many excellent exclusives that you can only play on PS4, PS5, or occasionally PC, but not really on the go outside of Steam Deck.
Sony could port these games over to a Vita 2 and give gamers a good way to play that robust library of PlayStation-exclusive games wherever they go. Imagine waiting to catch a bus while you're playing the Uncharted Collection, or imagine playing Bloodborne while you're waiting for class to start.
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Why PlayStation Vita 2 Would Be a Unique Portable
In the portable market, right now, there's mainly Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck. Switch is successful in large part due to how well Nintendo has supported the platform with its own unique, exclusive games, but Switch has struggled to be able to run modern AAA games that come out on traditional consoles like PlayStation and Xbox thanks to its weaker hardware.
Deck manages to offer up powerful hardware, but its game library is still limited, oftentimes you'll end up needing to tweak and mess around with stuff to get it to work, and perhaps most importantly, games aren't designed specifically for Deck's hardware, so it can't make full use of its capable hardware in the same way a PlayStation or Xbox can.
This is where a Vita 2 could differentiate itself. It could do that same Nintendo thing where it gets a ton of excellent exclusive PlayStation games, but it could also manage to run modern AAA games designed specifically for its hardware that doesn't need any work to run. It could be the home of Call of Duty on the go as much as it could be for The Last of Us on the go.
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