Sony mishandled the PSP and Vita and it’s a bummer.

[@jean-philippeperreault8887]

That footage of early you who talks about the PSP made me realize for how long I've watched KZbin videos on a daily basis. o_o

[@tvandlust]

haha Thanks for sticking around for so long!

[@UseTheBoost3D]

Your Vita collection video had me feeling a little nostalgic for the PSP. I was the only one in my friend group that actually played PSP games and didn't use it exclusively as an emulator device. I think I maxed out at like...10 games before selling it off, but I really liked that little group of weirdos. Loco Roco, Patapon, Gitaroo Man, Every Extend Extra, Daxter, Wipeout Pulse, FF Crisis Core, Half-Minute Hero, Burnout Legends, and What Did I Do to Deserve This My Lord 2. What a bizarre group. And I think it's kind of interesting and telling of my fondness at the time that I can easily remember each of them despite not owning them anymore! I also always loved the acoustic chimes of the PSP. Very charming and classy. "I'M PLAYING NUT"

[@tvandlust]

I love the PSP boot screen when launching a game. That musical tone and flash of colors. Perfect.

[@Timrtabor123]

Ahh the PSP or as I called it "the kingdom hearts birth by sleep machine"

[@millasgameroom]

Another reason the PSP and the Vita (especially the latter) found success was cause of all the RPGs and visual novels (both ports of PC titles and original titles) Japanese developers put on it. Both those genres (as much as I like them personally) aren't for everyone and won't sell consoles or hardware outside of a dedicated niche crowd especially outside of Japan. In many ways the PSP and Vita's niche crowd paved the success for those specific subgenres to have a larger presence long term especially outside of Japan. There's a bigger variety of games localised for the Switch than there ever were for the PSP (and the Vita to a lessor extent). Sony's failings were third party gains. That said, Sony should make sure to learn lessons properly if they ever attempt to do another handheld in the future. Nintendo has managed to strike the balance with the Switch lineup between mainstream and niche titles and with marketing it. it's something Sony could do too. Would also be interested in seeing an updated PSP collection video at some point. It'd be interesting to see what you held onto.

[@CosmicKangaroo]

The PSP was my first handheld and I played my PSP 2000 to death and I also watched movies on it during road trips. It was how I was introduced to sonic the hedgehog and genesis games through the Sega Genesis Collection.

[@jbinminot]

They screwed up the Vita marketing big time in the US. In Japan they got more games. It became a dumping ground for every JRPG. The PSP has a more diverse library.

[@jackkoeberle1143]

Wild you made this, I just broke out my 3000 and was going down memory lane with the second pursuit force, FF Tactics War of the Lions, and the Sega Genesis Collection. I like to think I always appreciated most of the psp’s catalogue (probably because it was my newest/ primary system in that era). Won’t lie, I might mod it and throw some emulators on it at this point though!

[@tvandlust]

Wouldn’t blame you if you did!

[@sixteenbitter]

OLED Vita 1000 is still my favorite portable hardware 10+ years on. Still use it and it still has a scene. Sonic Mania just got fan ported to it!

[@Truekingr6]

oh wow where can i find it? is it on the homebrew store? my friend gave me an oled vita a few years ago and just recently hacked it and i was able to get all my childhood games from the ps1. psp and even some ps2 with the collections, its just so cool!

[@tvandlust]

Nice!

[@jrandt08]

I’m 35. I had a GBA and a DSI. I totally missed out on both Sony handhelds at launch. I sold my Blu-ray collection in 2014 and bought a vita and like the top 30 games. I enjoyed it. It was fun. I sold it all and bought a psp 2000 in 2017. I instantly became addicted to collecting complete games and movies for it. I tackled the top 50 games list with ease. It was the top 50 movies list that was even more fun to accomplish. I had soooo many movies. Like unopened Michael Keaton Batman. Die Hard... Evil Dead... Halloween... I have no idea what these movies are worth now, but back in 2017-2018 they were pretty expensive. The movie quality wasn’t great and it killed even a new psp battery, pretty quickly. It really made no sense to utilize it having cellphones with streaming in much better picture quality, but it was soooo fun to collect for. I ended up selling my entire collection to one guy in 2019. He got a killer deal. I used the $ from that to buy like 50 Mezco action figures. Then I resold all the Mezco figures during covid lockdowns and bought Omnibuses. Now I collect omnibuses. I think I’m schizophrenic.

[@Jessinator101]

Long time viewer here and this was one of my favorite videos by you! I’d like to see more of your takes in the future like this

[@tvandlust]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! What about this particular video would you like to see in the future? I’d like to know how I can make that happen

[@keearun]

I got my psp in 2005 when I started working in a continental shift. Just remember many sleepless hours just gaming on the psp.

[@TheLittleMJPuppet]

Fantastic video, glad to know you covered this topic!

[@tvandlust]

Thanks for watching!

[@SilverMongooseVideos]

Those commercials were pretty wild and honestly made me want to try a PSP less. Only played one for the first time in 2021 and the first think I thought was "Damned, this is slick". Really makes the DS feel like a toy in comparison.

[@dmbshooter1]

Hey Craig- Do you think there will ever be another Sony handheld system??

[@tvandlust]

Maybe, but I’m doubtful personally

[@Cakeman777]

I only played a PSP and Vita after the system was nearing its end. I wasn't interested in the "console game on the go" mentality Sony was throwing around. I just got the games that showed up on the handhelds that I thought looked fun and really did enjoy them! I completely agree that Sony should have focused on the handheld part of the PSP and Vita more than anything else, all of that hoopla for having the best looking, playing, and biggest game falls flat on me now and it still did back then. Handheld gaming is one of my favourite ways to play and that's why Nintendo's approach fits better for me, so while there are for sure some good memories for me, the PSP and Vita are just fun little experiments.

[@059hambone]

I had all the Nintendo handhelds growing up and my brother briefly had a psp. Really what killed it for him was lack of funds to spend on psp games as a kid but also he didn’t really want too many of the games on the system. I mean even now I can’t say there is really any games on the system pushing me to ever get one. But yeah for us it was lack of funds and software taste

[@tvandlust]

It was an expensive system back then!

[@SonyEnthusiast]

Sony needs to definitely upgrade. Also, need an update on the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

[@GameDadGrant]

I remember Sony saying at some show (maybe E3?) that the PSP was going to take handheld gaming "out of the ghetto" or something to that effect (affect?). Haha. The PSP was great and yeah, it was a great companion system to the DS at the time. I'd argue it was a fine system on its own, too. So many JRPGs! Great stuff. The Vita was great too...for about two years and then Sony moved on to PS4 and never looked back. It's a shame, like you said.

[@tvandlust]

Oh yeah, PSP stands on its own, I was just speaking in terms of being a competitor (or a companion!)

[@GameDadGrant]

@@tvandlust Oh for sure. Totally agree, dude.

[@funzbunz]

Got them both on launch day, ahead of their time in many ways but the execution was flawed by Sony. Much like yourself, handheld gaming is a passion of mine, I'd love another Sony portable system but obviously that isn't likely to happen again. Great video as always, long live the vita and psp.

[@faidou9954]

It depresses me to know that SOny may never make another handheld console ever again, let alone one that rivals the Nintendo Switch.

[@ngamer007]

Hey Craig. My perspective is a bit different, particularly on the Vita. My favorites were those that were full blown console-like experiences, yet exclusive to the Vita. Such as Uncharted Golden Abyss. I bought a Vita precisely because I wanted a console like experience on the go. But Sony quickly abandoned catering to the USA audience, in record time the Vita became a graveyard for western action, adventure, and shooters. And it turned into a digital distribution JRPG console. Which don’t get me wrong, that’s the reason many others adore the Vita. But I do not share that affection for 2005 and newer JRPGs. From purely a hardware perspective, to this day I prefer the Vita over the Switch. But the software distribution fell apart too rapidly.

[@tvandlust]

Yeah, good perspective. I personally didn’t buy these systems to be a portable console so I didn’t explore that viewpoint very much, but it’s worth pointing out that Sony failed the very people they marketed the Vita to in the long run. Have you played Killzone Mercenary? I generally don’t care for Killzone, but I really enjoyed that on Vita.

[@ngamer007]

@@tvandlust Yes I liked it. I thought they did a great job with that game. It was just plain old fun without feature creep.

[@Truekingr6]

whenever sony was gonna close down the store i hacked my vita and its the most fun handheld i have. well my switch is nice and all but i have most metal gear games on vita

[@ogre706]

The Vita especially had little to no casual appeal. Us hardcore gamers are able to find love for most gaming hardware, but the casual person saw the Vita as an expensive and unnecessary device.

[@tvandlust]

Which is a shame because I think it could have been well received by a slightly more casual audience if positioned (and priced) correctly

[@danholo]

I think the mishandling and failed success is part of the appeal.

[@tvandlust]

You probably have a point, although I wouldn’t categorize post mortem success as… well, success, really lol. But I do agree their failures probably did spark some renewed interest. Too little too late though.