Random: German Tech Blog Imagines What The PlayStation Switch Would Look Like

First of all Switch must deliver! At the moment there is hype and success but at the end of this year we will see if Switch has enough momentum for the next years or if it was just a flash in the pan.

Only then, the competitors would try similar things.

After the speed that Sony abandoned first party support for the PS Vita and the fact they seem focused on the PS4 plus upgrades and potentially PSVR (for now at least), I don't really think they have the resources to do another portable. Plus both previous systems were destroyed by Nintendo. It's the one area Nintendo have never lost a battle in.

With a battery life of exactly 4 seconds.

They'd probably just abandon it real quick not long after release, just like the Vita.

That's a lot of unwieldy corners on the thing when the controllers are attached.

@SCAssassin
Oh, be fair! 4.5 seconds!

Meh... !
Switch from Nintendo is the Best.

1) it would be a new low for sony if they make a 1:1 copy of switch

2) who would ever buy a sony portable again after how they treated the vita? (and i did own a vita..sold it just a couple of months ago)

I really hope everyone mimics Nintendo's idea. The Switch has spoiled me, now I want every game on the go, on the same device, without having to pay twice for it.

Looks nice

I'd love this. The vita was far superior to the 3ds, was a real shame it never got the proper support it needed - the 3ds benefitted massively by being released when the Wii was on the way out and then supported as the Wii u was failing.

It looks like the hands had the most work done. not bad even. not bad at all.

@Folderoll Superior in technology, sure (including the two sticks). Everything else, not so, and I own both devices. Where it matters the most, games, the 3DS wins anytime any day. I wish it wasn't so, but I 've been burned by Sony handhelds and will never buy another handheld from them, that is, if they ever made another, which I don't think they will.

I'll call it PS Veto.

Just as Nintendo has trouble adjusting to the home console competition, Sony would have trouble competing with Nintendo in this field. The past has shown exactly that. And do not forget that N has their whole first party arsenal devoted to the Switch, something that Sony cannot afford.

They look way more awkward than joycon lol cool idea, the Lil bar that makes it into a controller is terrible, the screen is nice and big... But would it run discs? If so, yeah the battery would last like 1 hour lol Sony would never use cartridges. Plus it looks so fragile, the switch can take a beating

@Raylax Not only are the prices of the memory cards infuriating, they're also impossible to find nowadays, especially in the UK. I had a 8GB one from the God of War bundle, and I had to pay a friend to get me a second 4GB one from Greece, where it was the only option available and sold for the recommended retail price. And still, although they changed a few things around with the 2000 version, they kept the proprietary memory cards. Insanity

@gortsi

Right, which is why I said it was a shame Vita didn't get the support - i.e. with games.

Eyesroll

I love my Vita and would like a portable Sony machine again but I very much doubt they will do it. The Switch still has to persude the world it needs to exist.

Secondly, what would it play? PS4 games? Well no, it won't because it won't support discs, and why would you sell something that might affect the sales of your other products? So it means a new eco-system which means paying for first party and second party games.

Personally I think Sony will keep to home consoles so they can keep making them more powerful to impress their customers.

And if they're not careful, they're going to bankrupt themselves and a few developers as game production costs rise.

I'd honestly like to see Microsoft try their hand at a Switch-like portable. Similar to a Surface Pro, but more videogame focused.

Would be nice to be able to play original xbox and x360 games on it.

Can we not have this? I really don't want to see PlayStation plodding along after Nintendo when this is such a critical time.

Not gonna lie, as much as I love my Vita (dispite paying $100 for a 64 gig imported memory card) Sony cares more about power to the point it hurts their handhelds. When you say "Our handheld is the console experience" it is judged as so. Which hurts the view of the system. Honestly it's a great machine if you love jrpgs.

And I'm reminded of how glad I am that my dad didn't let me buy a Vita at launch.
So many more games I like are on 3DS.

@gortsi @Raylax The proprietary memory cards for the Vita were a response to the huge amount of piracy that plagued the PSP via it's Memory Stick slot - many of the top games for the PSP could be available for free online days after launch.

I'm not saying that Sony made the correct choice by pricing their memory SO high, but I'm guessing they were gambling on games to sell the system (and eventually bring the cost down). Unfortunately Sony didn't understand that you couldn't just put an old PS3 game in a handheld and expect it to top the charts.

Edited: Thanks for catching me on that slip up gortsi. #tiredboysmakemistakes

@DanteSolablood I know, but that's still no excuse. The PSP didn't use SD cards, it used the Memory Stick Duo format, which was used by other devices as well (such as Sony cameras), so its price went down eventually and by the time I bought a PSP these cards were very affordable (you could also use an adaptor and put in a regular micro-SD instead) . When your main competitor uses the SD format though, you should go with that, considering that the 3DS doesn't have a similar problem with rampant piracy (I'm not saying it doesn't exist, only that it's not as bad as the DS or the PSP).

@gortsi You're correct about them using Memory Sticks, that's my bad - but the issue is was still the same, Sony were unable to control the sheer amount of piracy & decided to use a new format to price control piracy to death (and make it impossible to transfer files to the PC for cloning). Instead they killed their handheld.

The main difference between the PSP & the 3DS was that Nintendo's eShop was a lot less developed & you couldn't get many full games ON the 3DS' SD Card at the time (plus the UI being a lot more simple made security easier).

As I said, I'm not saying it was the right thing to do - but that's the route Sony took. They probably felt that using SD Cards for the Vita would have been akin to handing out free games.

@DanteSolablood Indeed. And like I said before, what's even more infuriating is that you can't even buy them anymore, at least in most countries in the EU (unless you're prepared to pay crazy money, way above RRP).

God, that device is ugly looking, though! One of the nice things about the Switch's design is how clean and organic the whole affair feels. That really does just look like somebody snapped controllers onto a tablet.

Sony is having a lot of success as a pure home console developer right now, though. I don't see why they'd try to emulate Nintendo when their products are selling as well as they are.

At least, not in the immediate future.

After the fall of Vita Sont won't get back to handheld marktet. And why should they ? PS4 is a huge success

Pretty sure Sony has abandoned portable gaming entirely. Vita did not take off in the West. The system was a pretty cool piece of tech but it just failed to deliver. I had one and I traded it in towards the Nintendo Switch. At the time, EB Games was offering some pretty cool trade-in offers for the Switch by trading in PS4, XBones, and even Wii U...but the Vita was not included in the extra credit deal. That just goes to show how much of a failure it was. I don't think Sony is keen to get back in to the portable arena.

@MarcelRguez To be fair, that was a Nintendo problem to begin with.

If you have an Android tablet/phone and 'console', you can use your one purchase on all of them. If you have a PS3/PS4 and PS Vita, a huge amount of the games are cross-buy.

Nintendo solved its own problem, not so much a problem

I know this is fan made, but it looks....... bloody dreadful.

Wouldn't surprise me however if Sony were already researching and developing something like this. Anyone with half a brain can see the Switch is an incredibly innovative machine with nothing by pure potential to revolutionise how we all game.

Sony will have observed this and be no doubt looking at how it could fit into their hardware library as they always have and will.

I'm not saying they will develop it to the point of release, it would have to be financially worthwhile, but they will most certainly be looking at what they could deliver in terms of competition to the Switch.

PlayStation console is their best point in case.
Playstation Move is bar their worst point in case.

Wow...this thing is....ugly. I mean really ugly. The design makes no sense. It's a huge screen with VERY big, clunky controllers that don't look in any way portable, and scarcely even bagable. Handheld mode looks like the most uncomfortable, wrist-damaging affair ever, and the "dock" that presumably adds more power that folds up with it to travel with that monstrosity, or not (as though the base handheld can somehow run the same games well without the rest of the console, and with seemingly no space for a battery big enough to power the whole console and that giant screen for any meaningful amount of time.) While Switch is simple, compact, streamlined, and elegant, purpose built for the tasks at hand, this thing looks like a random cobbling that ticks off all the check boxes of what switch does, but doesn't do any of it in any usable method.

This is a leak of a legit Sony handheld, isn't it?!?!

@Akropolon What games are Cross-Buy? Gravity Rush 2? Horizon: Zero Dawn? Persona 5? Uncharted 4?

Or a bunch of random indie games and some PS1 stuff?

@DarthFoxMcCloud Ouch, Gamestop pays more for a WiiU than a Vita? That just goes right in the gut there.

To be fair Vita didn't fail to take off so much as it was murdered by it's creators before it ever could have. They were keen to push Vita when it launched in the PS3 era, but they seemed to launch it in a vacuum as though PS4 wasn't going to happen. The MOMENT they announced PS4 and started moving the marketing engine in that direction they began ignoring Vita and actively marketed it as a PS4 accessory. It suffered the same fate as the Virtual Boy under N64's shadow and WiiU under 3DS's shadow, but better than VB and worse than WiiU.

Yoshida's reasoning for the failure of Vita (and lack of successor in the works) is that there's just not a market for that kind of device anymore. Which is hilarious considering until recently, the 3DS had still sold more than the PS4 (albeit having been on the market longer.)

But I could see them doing a 180 with a hybrid and saying it's totally different from a Vita. But it would have to be what the PS5 IS, or make a PS4 Hybrid after PS5 launches, rather than a side product as a handheld. And it would have to be digital only since a disc player wouldn't be possible. That would be a big platform problem.

I still think MS is in a much better position to hybridize than Sony if Switch is a success. It's not like their home console is a very successful product, and switching targets from Sony to Nintendo would have advantages for them.

@DanteSolablood
May I share my opinions about PSP & PS Vita vs NDS & 3DS ?
For me, NDS wins over PSP because I have tons of NDS games to buy than PSP with (Almost) No worthy games to buy.
3DS is Absolutely wins my heart 100 % (I have both Older and New 3DS XL) + More than 25 games).
When I see PS Vita, I see Nothing but Blah...
PS4 still a bit better than PS Vita in my opinion but still.... PS4 has very poor library game choices for me in my opinion despite I have owned some PS4 games. Tough choices.

Seeing this makes me wonder what a switch 2 could be like in 6 or 7 years. I think it's a fantastic console can't wait to see what the future holds.

@Akropolon You still have different titles that aren't cross-buy split between the home console and the portable. Can't play Bloodborne on the Vita without streaming, for example. Furthermore, you still have to pay for both devices.

That's actually pretty cool but we all know Sony games just are not very good on mobile or did we forget about the PSP and Vita

Seeing how prosperous Sony is with PS4, why copy and fail (again) for consumers to see a worldwide embarrassment on their part? I like Sony's consoles, but not their blatant copy fail tech.. Just stay in your lane Sony.

Just no. No. It will never happen

RIP Vita - the most under-appreciated console ever...

@Anti-Matter Your opinion is always welcome! Handhelds are more of my speciality as I've owned most of the ones released in the UK (and a couple that weren't) whereas my console ownership record is spotty.

Nintendo has always been the out & out winner when it comes to handhelds because they have more experience, are more associated with handhelds and don't make the same mistakes Sony does, like UMDs. Spinning up the UMDs ate a huge amount of the PSPs battery life and created loading times... something which can be a killer when you're looking for a quick game on the go. Didn't help that tablets stole the "movies anywhere" concept UMDs were really trying to push.

The PS Vita mostly died because of price & not understanding that it had to differentiate it's games from those of the PS3 at the time. While CoD on the go sounds great in theory.. with dodgy mobile internet, a shaky bus & rounds lasting longer than the average commute, was it feasible? I didn't buy into the Vita as I never thought it would succeed - though I may now pick one up cheap.

The one handheld that got EVERYTHING RIGHT and still failed? The NeoGeo Pocket Color. It was more powerful than the Gameboy Color, had built in software, a digital stick and amazing controls and some of the games were fantastic. What did it not have? Pokémon. Dang'it Nintendo!!

Oh, as for the DS... other than the Micro, I've had every iteration of the NDS, been through a couple of 3DS as well (my ambassador original cosmo black & my blue special edition Pokémon 3DSXL). The games are the (Pokémon) stars.

Forgot to mention the 30 minute battery life. And by 30 minutes, I mean 30 minutes lifetime, as that battery would melt.

It looks too nice and sleek to be from Sony. Needs more strange design choices.

Well this looks like the PlayStation 5.
Eventually at the end of 2019 they will let the PlayStation 4 die and replace it with an hybrid.
The future looks hybrid, that's it.
If they can wait 2019 they can assemble a powerhouse with 7 nm technology, otherwise they can shoot to fall 2018 with 10 nm. Still it will be easy to port games over from the PC (and PlayStation 4). And all people knows in the industry that you can't boost assets forever because it became a too costly game to play.
That's the future. Though I wonder if Nintendo can then withstand the PlayStation brand, the graphics competition and the non-popularity over the +18 segment.
At some point Nintendo should become a general brand, not focused on kids (while still developing their games aimed at kids).

Oh look a cool new imaginary box to play the games made by all the Vita studios Sony shut down.

This won't work for a billion reasons, chief among them that there will be a Playstation 5.

If they had one, wouldn't buy it. I buy for Nintendo games

I would argue that it was Sony, and not the Vita that failed.

Better for handheld gaming industry if they did. Don't let it dry up even if Nintendo is superior

The only thing that made the psp successful for me was the CFW. In Europe the psp retail marked for new games died quiet quick since we only got psp essential as new releases... Making CFW the only valid option to get new games and psx stuff on it.

The vita was a failure with that stupid interface, the useless touchback and anti consumer proprietary memory cards. It wasn't a bad console, Sony just decided to kill it like they did with the psp.

One of the reasons the Switch will work out is that Nintendo will focus all of its output on it. I don't see Sony supporting PS4, PSVR and an hypothetical hybrid all at once. Their output would take a nosedive or they would abandon some systems, which would be a repeat of the Vita.

inevitable after the success of the switch. this is the future.

First, let me start with the compliment: this thing looks totally rad! All planes and angles and sharp edges with decorated with chrome and blue LED accents and a Sony Logo. The Switch is a very nice looking system as well, especially with colored Joycons. But it's not striking in the same kind of way that this thing is - and that beefy kickstand! WANT!!

Now, all that said, I don't have all that high an opinion of this thing in general. I think that should Sony take this seriously enough to release it, if they are very lucky, it'll be the next Vita, and if they are less lucky, it'll be the next PS Move.

I have a PS4, and every Sony system ever made other than the PS1* and the new PS4Pro. So a I don't say this as some anti-Sony Nintendo fanboy - though I am definitely a bigger Nintendo fan than a Sony fan, with the PS1 being the only Sony system that I've actually preferred over its Nintendo counterpart, well, maybe PS4 over WiiU...maybe, and I guess I consider the Wii, PS3, and XB360 as a three-way tie. Still, the PS1 is the only point where I can say "Oh, definitely Sony".

So, if not fanboyism and brand allegiance, why do I take such a dim view of this proposed PlayStation outside of hypothetical cosmetics that the real machine might not even maintain? A few reasons:

1) Size.

Assuming this thing ever sees the light of day in the first place, and assuming the final product is even passingly similar to this one then either that screen is WAAAAAAAAAAAY too big, and/or those controller halves are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too small! Based on the hands in the picture, I believe the former is the case. Way too big a screen. But wait, I willingly choose to bind myself to screen sizes no smaller than 5.5", and would be happy probably going all the way up to 6.3" or so. My 6" Nexus 6 was the best I've ever had size-wise. So don't I believe that bigger is better when it comes to screens? In a vacuum? Sure, for the most part. But there are so many contextual concerns that could work against a blanket "bigger is better" mentality, and if this device is supposed to be as much a portable as a console, this size is completely out of the question! The Switch itself pushes against the max conceivable limits of size viability for a portable and this one is clearly much bigger than the Switch......OR.....the controllers are much smaller, which, no pun intended, might be a much bigger problem even than a way too huge screen. Just as the Switch pushes against the max reasonable size of a handheld, its Joycons, especially when using only the one half already pushes against the bare minimum size viability for a controller. If this screen is not waaaaaaay bigger than the Switch screen, then the controllers are waaaaaaay smaller than the Joycons and would be just the absolute worst, most tragic, infeasible and ultimately damning kind of hilarious. Either way, the Switch, though probably not perfect at all, strikes about the best compromise they can in the size category for its given hybrid form factor. This Sony in this respect is simply ridiculous - a cartoon!

2) Price/performance/profitability trilemma:

Especially given that screen, I don't see how the PlayStation hybrid could be even as powerful as the Switch, nevermind more powerful without either being way more expensive, or else being sold at such a loss that Sony just hemorrhages over it. Or, they could resolve the price/profit problem by putting less expensive and less powerful guts in it, but that's something Sony "cant't afford" to do in a completely different sense of the word. Nintendo has established a love-it-or-hate-it dynamic of not needing cutting edge hardware and performance to be awesome and be competitive. The same can't be said about Sony. Over the past four generations, Dony and Microsoft have fist fought over the mantle of pinnacle of power and performance, which is kinda "cute" to me as a PC gamer, but from a console perspective, they are still quite powerful, and without the power, their propositions suffer much more than Nintendo ever did or probably ever will for the same reasons. So I don't see a satisfying solution to this trilemma.

3) Dividing their ecosystem:

Though it won't happen until 3DS gets retired which won't be this year and only maaaaaybe will be next year, Nintendo will eventually unify its entire software ecosystem under one platform (other than the few token mobile games it throws out). Nintendo could even diversify the Switch platform into multiple pieces of hardware at different price and performance points just like they did with the 3DS platform. They could have a smaller device that s portable-only, could release an active dock that is much more powerful than a stock Switch, or heck, could even release a console-only "Dock" with the core hardware built-in, and as long as the software library stays constant, and the extra assets for the more powerful dock/console are download-only and will only download on that beefier hardware, then you still play the same games across all the formfactors without having to keep rebuying (and with my extra asset download idea, you don't end up with the "extra fat" of graphics beyond the grasp of a standalone Switch / standard dock sitting useless on the system, or raising the size and possibly the price of the game cards with no added benefits. I suppose Sony could just make this their "PS5", and have a more powerful dock come along right off the bat, with standalone console and smaller "true handheld" formfactors coming along a year or two later and have them all share a software library - and that'd be okay. But otherwise, rather than moving away from two to one like Nintendo is, they'd be moving from one to two, with self-canibalizing overlap between the PS4/Pro and the console aspects of this thing. Nintendo has the same quandary with the 3DS and the portable attributes of the Switch, but a) it's something they're moving away from rather than towards like Sony would be, but b) the dual screens of the 3DS offers a unique enough experience that the overlap isn't nearly so painfully felt because one does portable with two screens with one in 3D, while the Switch does portable that can also convert to console. Other than the ability to switch from console and portable, the rest of the mitigating distinction would be lost between PS4 and this thing, and the overlap would be more apparent and more painful.

4) Trust/Support:

Nintendo had this problem as well at the very launch of the Switch, and is still not completely out of the woods. But after the disappointment that was the WiiU, and after being now the third comparably underpowered platform, 3rd parties have been slow to get onboard with it, though the tide is turning. Sony could get over their similar baggage with developers over the Vita, they have to first. The Vita turned into a disappointment too, and Sony arguably did poor by it in terms of support. How many will trust pursuing another Sony portable especially in light of my next (and final) objection. And how long/well would Sony themselves support it? Maybe wonderfully. But it's still a question and that's still a problem. Sure, if it explodes like Switch did, it'll overcome just like Switch is starting to, but if it gets off to a cold start?....which is also made more likely by the implications of my next point.....

.....which is......

5) It's a "Switch copycat":

Had this thing beat the Switch to market, the problem would be the Nintendo's as they'd have released a "PlayStation whatever" clone. But Nintendo struck first, and so, everyone will see this as a copycat system and a copycat move. That certainly wouldn't turn away everyone, but it's take a lot of the excitement and all of the magic out of it for most. Sony loyalists will spring, and as a wannabe completist, I probably eventually would as well. But unless it ends up with just a dramatically better 3rd party AAA support than Switch, it'll mostly just be overlooked. And because of Switch's primacy, paired with all the objections listed above, I think it will ever and dramatically trail the Nintendo.

Depending on whether or not Sony releases this, it would either be a "beautiful dream", or a likely "beautiful lie"....and as personally believe that the latter is the worse of the two. So hopefully they don't release this - beautiful as it is!

Cheers!

*=I use my PS2 to play PS1 games and so I gave the 1 to my sister-in-law way back in the day. I actually would love to have it back - for completions's sake.

@SanderEvers I've never seen a cartridge in a psp

@SanderEvers well bugger me I just looked it up, lil carts like Switch. Last time I saw them it was those god awful umd things lol