PlayStation Vita

The PlayStation Vita was Sony’s second attempt at building a handheld video game console. It was released in 2011 during the eighth generation of video game consoles, going up against the Nintendo 3DS.

The PS Vita boasted modest specs for the time. The first iteration even boasted an OLED screen. It also featured complete backwards compatibility for all PlayStation Portable games.

You could even use the PS Vita as a remote play device for your PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. Remote play allowed you to play games without needing to use a TV.

While the PS Vita has built up quite a loyal fanbase that has modified the device for their own uses, overall, the console was a commercial failure. It failed to get near the same amount of sales as its competitor with the estimated final sales sitting at about 16 million units worldwide.

Analysts primarily point to this failure being of Sony’s own making. During the PS Vita’s lifetime, there were barely any games produced by Sony for the device. Additionally, due to Sony’s lack of support, there was never any real big push from 3rd party studios to support the device.

The PS Vita is a popular device for running emulated games, thanks to the broader community’s great work. People choose it as a suitable handheld emulation device thanks to its decent power, built-in support for PSP and PlayStation 1 games, and overall design.

However, emulation of the PlayStation Vita has had slow progress, primarily due to programmers’ lack of interest. There is currently only one actively developed emulator that has managed to produce results.

That PS Vita emulator being Vita3k. This emulator is still highly experimental and can only play a few commercial games.