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I still have a Japan model PS Vita that was manufactured circa 2018. It is unfortunate the hardware is stuck in 2014 (including the bundled WebKit!!). Through a

I still have a Japan model PS Vita that was manufactured circa 2018. It is unfortunate the hardware is stuck in 2014 (including the bundled WebKit!!). Through a Vita->SD converter and a jailbreak, I have nearly 40 games in this device. It has great battery life and is truly portable. I also recall last year a few new releases made for the Vita in the Japan PS Store, but due to the SSL certs in the Vita, you need to purchase the games on a PS4 device then transfer to the handheld, or something like that. Very unfortunate because from every angle it seems like deliberate sabotage by Sony, and the platform is basically dead, but not to me. I'm still yet to finish all of the games I have on the device. If Sony releases a new handheld, I hope they took lessons on how poorly they managed the Vita.

gambiting 3y ago
Well this device is just a PS Remote Client, literally nothing else. I would love to see a new PSP/Vita-like device, but this isn't it.
- throwawaymobule 3y ago
  are you sure? I was hoping it'd be an android device when I saw it announced, but I'm guessing they don't want MSs xcloud thing to work on it.
cosmotic 3y ago
Do you mean the software is stuck in 2014?
- koito17 3y ago
  Hardware and system software. Blue Reflection is a game that really pushes the hardware to its limits; when there are heavy particle effects in the game, you can discern a steep drop in frame rate. This game was released March 2017. There is also space limitations in play. A lot of assets are seemingly missing. In many cases, a character will have a dialog, but you do not hear their voice. I've never played this game elsewhere, so I don't know if this is correct, but it wouldn't surprise me, since the game is at most 2 GB on the Vita, and storing PCM audio is expensive. (I doubt AAC is used, despite hardware decoding available, because you will have to take into account encoder delay, remainder samples, and other annoying things in order to synchronize speech with character movement. Feel free to disprove me!).
  - dylan604 3y ago
    in my world of 8K and UHD/4K videos, audio is essentially a rounding error. For dialog delivered during game play, seems like they could get away with 8bit 22kHz mono and really drop the file sizes of PCM. at that point, audio is just an after thought except when you're trying to squeeze every damn bit out of a finite amount of space on a disc or filesize limit by a distribution platform.
goosedragons 3y ago
They stopped letting you add funds on the Vita so you have to do it on the web or another device. I don't think the PS4 store has Vita Games, the PS3 did but it actually supported transfering to and from the Vita whereas the PS4 never did. So you still need to make purchases on the Vita itself (or I guess a PS3). I had all my Vita games on my PS3 so I could transfer them rather than slowly redownload them on it itself but Sony BROKE that functionality when they forced two factor authentication. The worst bit is they couldn't even be bothered to offer a sensible error message like "this feature isn't supported anymore" you just get some cryptic error number. I loved the Vita but I'm never giving Sony money for a handheld again.
cableshaft 3y ago
I just came across my Vita a week ago after it sat dormant for two years and decided to go ahead and jailbreak it. Seems like the homebrew scene is still pretty active on there. They're even writing wrappers for Android games, like GTA 3 San Andreas, effectively bringing over games that never existed onto the platform. Still a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to get it all working after that though, but it still seems to be a popular platform for homebrew. There's enough happening for people to have monthly videos on new apps, games, and updates. I might even port one of my small puzzle games to it if I get a hang on homebrew development sometime, although that's probably a ways out still.
tetrisgm 3y ago
Have you considered getting a GPD Win 4? It's the same form factor and very modern PC specs.

gambiting 3y ago

Well this device is just a PS Remote Client, literally nothing else. I would love to see a new PSP/Vita-like device, but this isn't it.

throwawaymobule 3y ago
are you sure? I was hoping it'd be an android device when I saw it announced, but I'm guessing they don't want MSs xcloud thing to work on it.

cosmotic 3y ago

Do you mean the software is stuck in 2014?

koito17 3y ago
Hardware and system software. Blue Reflection is a game that really pushes the hardware to its limits; when there are heavy particle effects in the game, you can discern a steep drop in frame rate. This game was released March 2017. There is also space limitations in play. A lot of assets are seemingly missing. In many cases, a character will have a dialog, but you do not hear their voice. I've never played this game elsewhere, so I don't know if this is correct, but it wouldn't surprise me, since the game is at most 2 GB on the Vita, and storing PCM audio is expensive. (I doubt AAC is used, despite hardware decoding available, because you will have to take into account encoder delay, remainder samples, and other annoying things in order to synchronize speech with character movement. Feel free to disprove me!).
- dylan604 3y ago
  in my world of 8K and UHD/4K videos, audio is essentially a rounding error. For dialog delivered during game play, seems like they could get away with 8bit 22kHz mono and really drop the file sizes of PCM. at that point, audio is just an after thought except when you're trying to squeeze every damn bit out of a finite amount of space on a disc or filesize limit by a distribution platform.

goosedragons 3y ago

They stopped letting you add funds on the Vita so you have to do it on the web or another device. I don't think the PS4 store has Vita Games, the PS3 did but it actually supported transfering to and from the Vita whereas the PS4 never did. So you still need to make purchases on the Vita itself (or I guess a PS3). I had all my Vita games on my PS3 so I could transfer them rather than slowly redownload them on it itself but Sony BROKE that functionality when they forced two factor authentication. The worst bit is they couldn't even be bothered to offer a sensible error message like "this feature isn't supported anymore" you just get some cryptic error number. I loved the Vita but I'm never giving Sony money for a handheld again.

cableshaft 3y ago

I just came across my Vita a week ago after it sat dormant for two years and decided to go ahead and jailbreak it. Seems like the homebrew scene is still pretty active on there. They're even writing wrappers for Android games, like GTA 3 San Andreas, effectively bringing over games that never existed onto the platform. Still a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to get it all working after that though, but it still seems to be a popular platform for homebrew. There's enough happening for people to have monthly videos on new apps, games, and updates. I might even port one of my small puzzle games to it if I get a hang on homebrew development sometime, although that's probably a ways out still.

tetrisgm 3y ago

Have you considered getting a GPD Win 4? It's the same form factor and very modern PC specs.