PlayStation Vita: Our Love for a Dead Console

First released in Japan, North America, and Europe on December 17, 2011, the Sony PlayStation Vita is a handheld video game console and the successor to the PlayStation Portable (PSP). The Vita was designed to provide a home console gaming experience on the go. It introduced dual analog sticks, an OLED touch screen, remote play, and powerful specs never seen in a handheld. The console was ahead of its time, trying to compete with the success of the Nintendo 3DS and mobile gaming.

The Game Library

The console’s library is huge, featuring many indie games, JRPGs, fighting games, and more. Due to its power, some Vita titles look as visually pleasing as games on full consoles. Original titles such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Killzone: Mercenary, and Gravity Rush still look astonishing today. If you had the Vita 1000 series, which featured an OLED screen, the games looked even more beautiful. Direct ports from the PlayStation 3/4 have been developed for Vita, including Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Dead or Alive 5 Plus, and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Just a few PlayStation 2 titles were ported/remastered to the Vita, such as Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster and Persona 4 Golden, which required extensive reworking for their Vita iterations.

JRPG glory

For the JRPG lovers (like me), there is a variety of games on offer. I’ve already mentioned Persona 4 Golden and the FFX/X-2 remaster, which are fantastic games with good gameplay, story, and characters. Other RPGs such as Ys: Memories of Celestia, Trails of Cold Steel 1 and 2, Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir, Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, Freedom Wars, and more are excellent choices too. You can even purchase PlayStation One and Portable Classics directly from the PlayStation Store. Final Fantasy VII, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Ys SEVEN, and more are available on the Vita. This console introduced me to JRPG’s, and for that reason, it remains one of my favorites.

Fighting Games on the Go

If you’re a fan of fighting games, you’re going to love this console too, because there are many great examples of the genre available on Vita. Want to play Street Fighter x Tekken outside? Of course, you can! Dead or Alive 5 Plus on the train? Definitely! Including the PS One and PSP titles, there are so many fighting games you can use to get your punchy-kicky fix. Guilty Gear, Street Fighter Alpha 2, The King of Fighters 97, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 are not only great mobile fighters, but also some of the best fighting games ever on any console. Just like JRPG’s, this console introduced me to fighting games as well.

The Fall

Though it advanced on the PlayStation Portable’s ideal of bringing console-quality video games, visuals, and experiences to a handheld, the Vita couldn’t get the attention that Sony wanted. This was partly due to the relatively low popularity of mobile gaming at the time, but the Vita itself had some problems as well. The price point was too expensive for many gamers, set at $249.99 USD at launch. It also came with some unnecessary features, like a touchpad on the back and a low-resolution camera, which didn't move the needle for gamers and would never really catch on in the games that used them.

Sadly, the console features weren’t the only problem. Instead of using standard Micro SD cards or the Universal Media Discs (UMDs) used by the PSP, the Vita came with a proprietary memory card called the “PlayStation Vita game card”. Compared to Micro SD cards, those memory cards were much more expensive: A 16GB memory card cost $69.99 USD, which is bizarre compared to a SanDisk mobile 32GB card that sold for $21 USD at the time.

An average Vita game size is between 1 and 2.5GB, so including save data, movies, and photos, there are very few games you can play digitally. It all combined to rob the Vita of the audience it deserved. Sony quickly lost faith in its console and began removing support, services, and more from the Vita starting in 2015. In 2019, Sony officially ended the production and sales of the Vita in both Japan and Western countries, and in 2021, it stopped certifying new games for the console, officially ending its life.

The Vita Jailbreak

The PlayStation Vita was, in Sony’s eyes, a failure, yet it became more popular after being canceled. It’s been nearly 15 years since the Vita launched, and the community is still active. Nowadays, the most popular reason for buying a Vita is none other than modding/jailbreaking the console. This grants access to numerous things the Vita can offer, as it bypasses the operating system and gives full control of the machine. You can find a pre-modded Vita on eBay, or you can do it yourself, as there are tons of tutorial videos on YouTube. But what makes a modded Vita so great?

With a hacked/modded Vita, you can do many things, the most important being emulation. This allows you to play games from different consoles, and essentially turn your Vita into a retro gaming system. You can play games from the SNES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, Game Boy Advance, etc., all on the go by using a multi-emulator called “Retroarch”. Emulation is just one example of what you can do with a modded Vita.

Also, thanks to modding, you can finally use Micro SD cards on your Vita instead of overpriced memory cards. With the help of a MicroSD adapter called “SD2Vita”, you can use a MicroSD card up to 256GB. You can download PlayStation Vita, PSP, and original PlayStation games on a modded Vita for free, giving you the ability to make your dream game library on the Vita.

By using an app called “Adrenaline”, PSP and PS1 games support filters, savestates, and other features. You can even overclock your Vita, bringing its power to its limits. This can be useful for some Vita games like Borderlands 2, which runs at 15/20 fps. But thanks to overclocking, the game will hit the 30 fps mark. You can add your own custom Vita themes, and use it as a comics reader; the options are just endless.

Fan Ports

Thanks to the community of fans, the Vita has received ports of games that no one could have ever imagined. Back in 2021, the people who ported Resident Evil 3 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica made their Vita port of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Even I could not believe my eyes. This may not be special for some, since you can play San Andreas on mobile phones, but the fact that such a big game was ported to the Vita is stunning. San Andreas wasn’t the only Rockstar game ported, however: you can play GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA: China Town, Max Payne, and Bully on the Vita. Many other games like Doki Doki Literature Club, Higurashi, Doom, and Quake are also available.

Remote Play

One thing the console did well, even without modding, was an ability called “Remote Play”. It allows you to connect your Vita to your PlayStation 4 and stream those games on your Vita. Even if your Vita is outside your house, if it is connected to a solid WiFi network, you can play PS4 titles on the go. Games like Persona 5, Knack 2, God of War, Spider-Man, and more benefited from this feature. Since the Vita doesn’t have L2/R2 triggers, 3rd-party Vita cases with L2/R2 support have been invented to play the PlayStation 4 games with a more comfortable grip instead of using the back touch screen. It makes you feel like you are using a true PS4 handheld.

Our Love for the PS Vita

Surprisingly, even after “The Fall”, the community keeps growing to this day. People love the Vita so much that they are willing to buy a whole collection of every Vita game they can find. As you can see, the modders aren’t stopping making and porting games either. But why do people care about a 10-year-old console? Why are we so attached to the PS Vita? It’s me; I am a perfect example of why people love the Vita.

My story

I got a Vita in 2015, when I was 12-years-old. At that age, I only knew a few game franchises. Since I barely got any money at that time, I kept downloading demos. I played many games I’d never seen or heard about, and though I loved them, I couldn’t get my hands on the full versions. Physical games were most likely sold out, and my parents wouldn’t allow me to buy games very often. So I was stuck with a Vita with almost no games until I heard of the possibilities offered by modding/jailbreaking. The ability to get access to the whole library of Vita games was mindblowing for me at that time.

After many failures, I finally hacked my Vita, and it was amazing. It wasn’t long before I was playing way more than ever before. Vita games weren’t the only ones I played, as I also enjoyed PSP and PS One titles. I was introduced to many gaming franchises, such as Final Fantasy, Persona, the Trails series, Ys, Street Fighter, Tekken, and more. I would never know those games if it weren’t for the Vita, and I don’t know where I would be without it.

The Vita gave us many great memories that we will never forget. I’m proud to call myself a Vita owner and resident of Vita Island!!