Topic: What if Sony had created the Switch and called it PS3P?

Now I'm a big fan of the Switch. My gaming career started with the SNES but my gaming enthusiasm peaked with the PSX. I have not always been loyal to Nintendo as I skipped the N64 and traded my GCN for a PS2. I enjoyed portable gaming on the NDS which satisfied all my Nintendo needs for a long while.

Now with the Switch released, I am super excited to see a powerful portable device. (The TV dock is a gimmick for me. One that I highly appreciate.) The Virtual Console is a major plus for me and I am looking forward to play through my beloved classics again.
However, some key games from my youth are missing. Namely the PSX titles that followed the SNES.

Seeing that the Switch outperforms the PlayStation 3 technically, I was wondering what would have been if Sony had decided to create a portable PS3 with HDMI-out. Let's be honest here, PSP and PS Vita are dried out raisins compared to a basket full of ripe fruits. Their exclusives are bland and if it weren't for emulated classics, they would have been a huge failure.

Instead of the crooked lifecycle of Sony's portable devices, they should have tried to create a PS2P and PS3P respectively. The Playstation 3 has released new games until recently and all are available as digital downloads on PSN. Imagine you could transfer your account over to new hardware. Bam! Red Dead Redemption, GTA5, Skyrim, Ni No Kuni, etc. available on a portable device. Not only that, but also all PSX and PS2 titles available as Classics. Add a TV dock and you could throw the original PS3 in the trash!

It would have been far more attractive than a PS4 Pro which's power will never be effectively used due to mandatory backwards compatibility. 4K HDR is a gimmick that tries to rival PC and just sorts out the people that mostly care about gameplay. For us, the Switch is far more attractive. But what if...

There's a thing called 'remote play' where you can use a WiFi connection to play all your PlayStation 3 and 4 games on the go. You also had a little thing called the PlayStation TV, where you could play a selection (not all, unfortunately) of PS Vita games on any television.

I know what you are getting at, but the world is full of 'what ifs' and what has happened has happened. I'm not sure I agree with the exclusives being 'bland'; I had a whale of a time with the original PSP, and the PS Vita had a great line-up for the first 18 months or so (before Sony moved onto the PlayStation 4 for good).

p.s. And playing Horizon Zero Dawn on my PlayStation 4 Pro in 4K and HDR is most certainly NOT a gimmick!

If Sony wants to make another successful handheld, they need the games for it. The games that sold the PSP over 10 years ago just won't sell any new handheld that Sony spits out today.

They will, you people remember Playstation Move?

@Joeynator3000 Remember the EyeToy?

@Octane Didn't that come out after Kinect? lol

@Joeynator3000 It existed as a concept before the Xbox even was a thing.

@Joeynator3000 Youre thinking of the PS Camera. Or maybe Wonderbook? Or...what was it? PSP Go? PSTV? PS Mobile?

Theres a laundry list of what ifs for concepts and Sony to be fair tried most and dropped em like hot rocks full of lead.

Its why, most times, I say buy Sony's main system, ignore any peripherals, wagglewands, weird things and handhelds they have, because inevitably, they will be dropped.

Now if Sony made the Switch? Rather, WHEN Sony makes a Switch, I'm sure it will have some faults like the Switch has had, but they'll be fine with it. I'm sure it'll have a pretty meh launch lineup like PS4 did. But folks would be fine with it.

It's all about perception, and barring a monumental cock up to rival giant enemy crabs and 599 US Dollars, PlayStation is pretty much the only home console that has near universal positivity about it.

It'd have to be a portable version of the PS4 to have any sort of impact now though, surely?

The Switch can handle PS3 games - one of the big system sellers from that generation, Skyrim, is already being ported over...by the time it'd come to market, a PS3P would have to rely on exclusives - a battle it surely couldn't win vs. Nintendo?

I guess all them 4K HDR TV's are gimmicks too? which will be standard in a few year time.

That was my perception, yes. In Germany our "HD" television broadcast is still at 720p. I don't see 4K ever becoming a standard aside from Netflix. But Netflix is also not persistent and the catalogue has hardly anything in 4K. It can just as well jump to 8K.

Maybe I'm wrong. But I don't know anybody owning or planning to buy a 4K television. And even though PS4 Pro is marketed as 4K gaming console, we all know that with a few exceptions games will not be optimized for 4K. It's a "standard" I see most people willing to miss out on. The graphics fetish is best kept with PC.

It doesn't even run in 4K. Apart from that, HZD is not the game that creates an itch and can make people buy a new console. At least not for me or according to most reviews.

But that was not point of the discussion. I think the portability aspect is much more interesting. If you could play GTA5 in your palm, you wouldn't start comparing shader methods or count pixels. It would simply be impressive and make just as much fun to play as on a big screen. It would surely be the best handheld launch ever with all games on PSN being available on day one.

Maybe I am overlooking something obvious. Perhaps the PS3 chips have never shrunk in size. Instead 'similarly powerful' mobile solutions are engineered totally different and thus software would not be compatible. I am just saying, if Sony had the power of the Switch and use it to emulate a PS3, I probably wouldn't have registered in this forum, lol.

The Switch is more than just a piece of hardware. For Sony to have made the Switch they would have had to:

1. Not have the PS4
2. Pool all their resources into one platform
3. Have a stronger list of exclusives

In some ways the PS4 is like the Switch. Sony has abandoned their portable line and is now solely focused on home consoles. The Switch is kinda like Nintendo doing the same shift but for portable gaming.

I think Sony has, sadly, given up the portable market.

Nintendo have been very successful based in that market, largely because of the software. Sony never really succeeded with franchises on their portables. I think Nintendo have been left the mobile market (or what is left of it) by Sony and it is a reason why I think the Switch will do well. Sony really only had eyes on their immediate competition, PC gaming and XB so I don't think they would have traded in on the PC box arms race.

This exactly.

The PS4 has been a huge success because it's had a singular marketing focus and message that's easy to communicate and understand (and Sony have tremendous marketing reach to effectively project that message). That message is "Playstation is the most powerful console available today with the best looking games. It's simple to use and set up and the best option for just about everyone".

If that message encompasses a handheld it becomes diluted. "Playstation is the most powerful console available today when it's at home and powered up but the performance on the go isn't as good as XBox at home but.." isn't quite as strong a message*. It's clearly one of the reasons why they dropped the Vita. It may have been moderately successful but it was a weight around the necks of their marketing and sales departments.

Of course the other reason why a "Playstation Switch" wouldn't work at this moment is technical and to do with the processor architecture and the nature of the Playstation ecosystem. Something like the Switch really needs to be baked in at the design stage - it's easy for a hybrid to become a pure home console or a pure handheld but I think it's basically impossible for a dedicated system to become a hybrid from the opposite direction.

*Nintendo's message around the Switch is different - they make no claim that Switch is the most powerful anything. Their message is all about playing anywhere with anyone.

@Switchcraft Like I said to you before, I understand what you are getting at, but the PS Vita was more or less a PlayStation 3 'lite' on the go and had all the big home console games on it such as Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD, Gravity Rush, Hot Shots Golf, Killzone: Mercenary, LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, MotorStorm RC, Persona 4 Golden, Tearaway, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Virtua Tennis 4 and WipEout 2048.

And, outside of Japan, it didn't do particularly well.

So I guess the market isn't there for Sony and their first party games to be on a portable format. In fact, @skywake says it best when Sony are better for it when they pool all their available resources onto a single platform, and look at where they are today after the rather rocky period during their PlayStation 3 days.

In regards to Horizon Zero Dawn, I forgot to add the technical term 'checkerboard' before 4K however, even the industry experts at Digital Foundry have a very tough time of things to see any noticeable difference between a game using the checkerboard method and 'true' 4K.

And I personally know one person who recently bought a PlayStation 4 just to play Horizon Zero Dawn too!

A PS3 portable would require the Cell processor, no? I think it would be too much of a technical hurdle in today's ARM-dominated mobile processor world.

The problem with anything with extra power is that it will eat the battery even faster than the 3 hours of the Switch with Zelda.
We really need to advance in battery tech at this point...

Cough, cough, vita, cough cough.

Although that does need Wi-Fi

Lol, I don't see the anti-Sony fanboyism in this thread, but there is a simpler problem with this idea:

The PS3 is a last-gen console with a connotation somewhat akin to the Xbox One. The Switch is more powerful than the PS3. Those are obvious marketing downfalls and if Sony were to make a third portable system they would be better suited calling it the PS4 Portable (or really the PS5 Portable, the time frame we're talking about). And even then, generations / numbers are just kind of confusing on handheld and they would be better suited with a meaningless marketing subtitle like 'Vita.'

At this point, "superficial" is a better time. They'll probably be standard by the time 8k TVs or some crap roll out.