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EricHiggin on 20 September 2018
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KBG29 said:
EricHiggin said:
'BC and old retro games are stupid'. Shortly thereafter the PS1 classic is announced.

'We have no plans for a future handheld after Vita'... I wouldn't take that too seriously, no reason(s) in particular.

One of many examples. Sony will tell you they have no plans for a Price cut, Service, Game, etc. one day,  and then turn around and announce it exactly what they denied the day before less than 24 hours later. On the flip side, they will tell you they are working on something for a decade, but for some reason, they just can't ever get around to it. 

Another reason why I think they may try it. If they were clearly on board and talking handheld/hybrids, then who knows when it may launch, but the fact that they have been pretty quiet about it, makes me think there's likely potential for it to happen, soon enough. The last thing they would want is Nin knowing a direct competitor is coming so they can mount up and plan a future defense, which would allow Nin to simply expand their handheld/hybrid wall to an impenetrable degree that would make China blush.

Dante9 said:
EricHiggin said:

That was part of my point. PS got into handhelds, motion controls, etc, because Nin proved it could be done and in a way that made lot's of money. The odds that PS doesn't try a hybrid like the Switch are unlikely. The main reason I could see PS truly leaving that market sector entirely, is if they focus solely on PSVR from now on instead, which they just might do since they have that market to themselves and probably will continue to in the foreseeable future. Mind you, a PS hybrid should fix the Switch mobility cross play issue if they felt they needed to directly address that.

Crap, I really don't think going hybrid would be a good idea for Sony. Or at least they have to offer a full fledged home console PS5 as well. The current Sony model is clearly working, so it'd be a mistake to make a sudden 180 just to try and copy what Nintendo is doing. I think Ninty has the portable market so well covered that it's no use trying to push into it. The Vita is a testament to that, I hope they at least broke even with that thing..

My thinking is if they do continue handheld or jump into hybrids, then it'll have to tie into the console ecosystem and not be it's own separate thing. PS is not going to drop home console. If third party games that play on PS4 can be ported to Switch, then PS could literally copy Switch right down the same hardware, and port PS4/PS5 first party games. Odds are they would try if possible to use a more like architecture to make porting as easy as possible, but the handheld/hybrid needs to be the right size, efficient, and be cheap enough, whatever hardware that entails.

I don't think PS is definitely going to try this either. They learned from PS3, and may use a similar lesson from Vita to drop anything resembling handheld altogether. Considering PS is invested in VR now, and has that market to itself, it does also make sense for them to focus on one or the other. Either create a hybrid and drop VR, or focus on VR and drop handheld.

PS could technically in the future merge VR and mobile though. Much like using a phone/phablet as a screen and driver for VR today, PS could do that in the future, and allow you to use VR with just a PS mobile device with limited capability, or use the VR with the home console for maximum capability. That way VR could be seen as it's own thing and wouldn't require the extra $400 ish for a console on top. It would probably increase the cost of the VR kit itself, but still end up being cheaper than a bare bones VR kit + a required home console.