Video: PlayStation Vita Apps Are Up And Running On Switch, Here's A Look

I am glad the switch can run vita games.

Ahh it makes me long for my og switch, seems like a fun thing to tinker with, I'd love to run my switch games on my PC like I do with my wiiu and cemu... I would also love to play PlayStation games on a switch haha

They run natively??? That’s insane!

Finally people will be able to play Persona 4 Golden on the Switch

Can't wait to preserve some vita games

That's neat. I won't be doing this with my Switch but it's cool that it runs natively.

Thats really cool.
Handhelds are usually the go to for emulation machines anyway.

the vita has games!?

If Atlus doesn't want to bring Persona 4 Golden to the Switch we have to do it ourself

Yaar! Thar be free games eventually, me hearties.

When the Super Switch, or whatever it ends up being called, inevitably releases I will buy one of those and homebrew my OG Switch. Then I can try out all of these fun features people are always showing off.

This is homebrew not actual design. So this would VIOLATE EULA terms for Sony and Nintendo. So to even play these games requires HomeBrew and NL shouldn't even post such stories.

Rudimentary now, but I'm really excited to see how this improves over time.

@SwitchForce Why does that mean NL shouldn't report on this?

Gaming done right. I would have loved to see more Vita games ported or remastered for Switch.

@SwitchForce I swear, everytime there's an article even mildly related to homebrewing (which this isn't even), you whine about how bad homebrew is.

Can you be more repetitive?

Of Course Nintendo Switch can run vita Games, Switch is newer and more powerful than the vita.

Cool, I may actually look into this for a separate Switch model some day, along with other Home-brew options.

@shgamer You joke, but watch this be the only way to play P4G on a Switch.

I wonder if the remote play function would work here, it'd be interesting to play PS4 games on the Switch.

@SirPrimalform NL shouldn't give the story traction.

@Neofan99 And why shouldn't they do that? It's an interesting story.

SUPER STARDUST DELTA ON SWITCH LESS GOOOOOOOOOOO

But you cannot play PS VITA game with Rear touchpad feature like Little Deviant or PS VITA game with AR Camera feature like Reality Fighters on Switch machine.

@SwitchForce Except that homebrew is lit, and Nintendo Life doesn’t want to be extremely boring.

@SwitchForce 😂 What is Nintendo paying you bro?

@SwitchVogel You're probably right, Persona will probably stay a PlayStation exclusive series (although P4G is available on PC, just not Steam Deck atm).

The thing is also that P4G is probably the only real classic on the Vita (94 Metacritic). The Vita is pretty great for more niché genres like fighting games though (and maybe japanese Visual Novels, I'm not interested in those though - or P4G for that matter).

The Vita's library just isn't that great, but it does have quite a lot of good fighting games in its library (plus a really excellent d-pad to play those fighting games with).

Vita is by far my favorite system of all time, and I have well over 100 games for it. Probably closer to 200. And that's not counting PSP games, PS1 Classics and minis, all of which run better on Vita (unlike DS games on 3DS systems). Outside of the absurdly priced proprietary memory cards (a huge negative to be fair), it was pretty much a perfect system, IMO. I've logged more hours on it than anything else for sure. I'd say I used it for about 50 times as many hours as my 3DS XL. I consider my Switch to be Vita 2.0 since I don't ever use it docked except for Ring Fit Adventure.

Mvg who cares what that nerd thinks

@NintendoEternity That's not the interesting part. The noteworthy thing is that it is apparently able to do so without emulation.
I'm guessing there must be some similarity in architecture, a bit like the way the Wii U can run GC games or the 3DS can run GBA games.

@GrailUK actually couldn't read your comment without doing a pirate voice.

I have one PSVita game and no console. Was waiting to get one on the cheap but maybe it won't happen.

Sony dropped the ball not making Vita TV feature-compatible with a standard Vita. Thus the compatibility White list junk.

Though they also messed up the PSP TV-output. Who wants to play with gameplay video restricted to 1x only?
I've heard of Chinese knockoff cables that fix that problem, but that's pretty bad, especially as the OS can upscale.

I want to be surprised, but the only thing that's actually blocking any Vita apps running 100% natively is the difference firmware. The architectures of both are similar in some ways.

What this also means is that porting anything from a Vita is theoretically very easy. I just hope more developers pay more attention to it and take advantage to bring games we never got to see leave the Vita.

@Foxx lol

@ModdedInkling I just hope more developers pay more attention to it and take advantage to bring games we never got to see leave the Vita.
You want to ask $ony this question before posting to NL as they hold the Developers in bondage.

Uh, that's one way to get Gravity Rush on Switch, I guess.😅 But considering the portability of both platforms there seems to be little point. The only app that would definitely benefit from a Switch gig (not counting the potential image blur due to resolution discrepancies) is PS4 Link, but it's obviously hard to imagine it safely working from a console spoofed on a homebrewed Nintendo console.😆

Damn, I remember when Sony seriously polled people about the idea of Remote Play on Switch among other stuff. Provided they'd offer adjustable resolutions (as I often bellyache, 720p is a no-go for mobile hotspot streaming here), that'd be the day.

Nice... so this mean devs could easily port their PS Vita games to Switch if they want.

Cool more modding articles!

I'm sure I'll mod mine one day but not for awhile like with the Wii.

You'd think Nintendo would cease and desist NL for weekly articles about all the cool things you can do with a modified console. I know I want more free games from seeing all the haxor articles here.

Truly fascinating stuff. Playstation Vita games running natively on a Nintendo system without decompilation or anything like that.

@SirPrimalform I believe that similarity in architecture shouldn't have anything to do with it. They called it a translation layer, but another common name for something like that is compatibility layer; think of steam deck's proton, apple's rosetta 2, or wine (see more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_layer).

@SwitchForce
Activision, Sega, Square-Enix...pretty much any 3rd-party developer that chose to support the Vita aren't necessarily bound by exclusivity with Sony, and even if they were, that exclusivity period would've been long gone already.

I am. Unable to use home brew on my switch version :/

Switch mouthful modes the vita… excellent, excellent indeed!

You kinda need a launch Switch to do this anyways, I have one, but...yeah I'm not gonna do stuff like this to my Switch. Just gonna stick with simple mods here and there.

@AlternateRT I believe there have to be some strong similarities in processor architecture to use a translation layer like that. Proton is based on WINE and in both cases they rely on you using the same kind of processor (i.e. x86/x64) and they just translate the Windows OS calls to the equivalents in Linux. This is also how Nintendont works on the Wii (and Wii U). What you are saying seems to back up what I was saying.

@SwitchForce It's cute that you think EULAs have something to do with either legality or morality.

@SlimPieEats yeah me neither I don't think Nintendo would've bothered with a switch revision if it wasn't for the exploit that they couldn't patch on the og switch

@SirPrimalform Remember my other example? Well Rosetta 2 is another translation layer for two completely different architectures (x86 to arm).

There are also a few other translation layers out there that work between different architectures. Anbox already allows Android apps to work on Linux (arm to x86) and Windows Subsystem for Android will allow Android apps to work on Windows (arm to arm, but also arm to x86).

So I still stand by my point that the similarities in architecture probably shouldn't have anything to do with it.

@SwitchForce Call the police.

PushSquare must be melting down, what with the vocal group of unreasonable Switch haters over there, 😂.

@AlternateRT Ah, fair enough. I'm not familiar with Rosetta 2, or Macs in general so that example was lost on me.
What is the difference between those and an emulator? Is it that an emulator emulates the entire machine while the translation layer is lower level and just swaps each instruction for the new processor's equivalent?

@AlternateRT Ok, I've watched some of the video and while I concede that a translation layer can translate from one architecture to another, in this case it doesn't have to.
The Vita and Switch both use ARM CPUs and it seems that the main thing this particular translation layer does is translate Vita calls to the Switch OS. In that respect this is closer to Nintendont or WINE than it is Rosetta 2. Thanks for the info about other kinds of translation layers though.

its not stable so no

@SwitchForce maybe some developers are into bondage. That's their personal choice. Speaking of choice, I really enjoyed the Nickelodeon Choice awards, because it involved slime. Not the kind of slime from Dragon Quest, as that would be ultra no no copyright problems.

That's what your comments sound like. But I respect your right to voice your opinion.

Only old Switches can be modded to run custom firmware like SXOS or Atmosphere in order to use this homebrew app. Why is NL promoting this is beyond me.

The unspoken truth is that this, if not a dead end, will be used for piracy. Any black or white area can be seen as gray with the correct dithering.

@nessisonett I don’t know of I would call it completely ”natively”.
As I understand it there is a level of real time translation required. (Especially for graphics)

But compared to emulation this should perform much better.
I think this should work in a similar fashion to Wine or Nintendont.
A compatibility layer.

If the shader translation is getting sorted out then I believe this have the potential of running commercial Vita games at full speed or even better performance than on the Vita.

And if they get to the point where games are running without issues then I suppose they could start looking into additional features like increased resolution and FPS patched and the like to enhance the games beyond what the Vita is capable of.

Compatibility layers usually do not impact performance much compared to emulation, and the Switch is no doubt more powerful than the Vita so it will be interesting to see where this goes.

@SwitchForce Why not? Is NintendoLife owned by Nintendo or do they have some sort of agreement with Nintendo that is prohibiting them from covering these kind of news?

I understand that if NintendoLife is partnering with Nintendo in any way, then this could be a problem.

But otherwise I really don’t see a problem here. It is news related to a Nintendo console after all. Even if it’s unofficial stuff

Why didn't the lunk head just play it on a vita?

I thought nintendolife didn't promote homebrew on current consoles?
Have you ever looked at the stats, I mean what is better for you as a site, does it attract more people to the site to post these kind of articles?
Cause in my opinion a good honest legal company doesn't skirt so close to illegalities.

@Gwynbleid Just like you responding to my comment, if you put yourself out there then you are pretty much asking for people to respond. But I suppose it is 2022 so I should known that someone will take issue!

As for the conversation regarding the legality of homebrew, that will only lead nowhere, so just not worth getting into. Maybe we could discuss all the benefits it has to the industry?

@SwitchForce Oh no there putting a systems games that is no longer being manufactured or sold on a newer system for people to enjoy.

Give them life in prison!

I sure hope you dont find out my Wii U is modded 0_0

@SwitchForce Homebrew is legal. Cope.

I purchased a Vita just a few months ago, and just last month I traded my OG Switch for Oled... Oh well. I couldn't wait any longer to get started on Trails in the Sky. Loving it so far!!

@WavedasherX Wrong once you emulate Copyright games you violated your EULA and homebrew also violates and ends warranty on devices using it. Go and re-read your device EULA you agreed to. You don't get support for homebrew.

@SwitchForce Breaking warranty is a given, but it's the owner's choice to make.

So Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all close their consoles and will ban players if they find they use homebrew. so they don't see enough positives in what you mention. In fact if you look at how much money is spent by Nintendo etc. they clearly don't follow your thinking. Also I would argue that the best place to play games should be the PC, as it clearly runs the best specs and is the easiest platform to develop on. However people still prefer to play games on consoles which I would put down to the hacking which plagues the pc, it is definitely why I don't.

I get that people what to play at being a games maker and that dev kits are hardly passed around like confetti, but that says to me there is a different problem with how career paths in the gaming industry are developed and that is not solved in this way.

@Gwynbleidd Sorry I did a reply to you above but I forgot to @ you.