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Remember the shock of Sony entering the handheld market with the PSP? Many experts predicted that the sleek console would spell the end of Nintendo’s dominance in the portable sector, and while the PSP was undoubtably a commercial success, it wasn’t enough to unseat Nintendo’s DS, which sold a whopping 154.02 million units worldwide (compared to the estimated 82 million units of the PSP).
Sony’s successor, the PS Vita, was far less popular, with estimated sales of between 10 and 15 million – a fact which saw the Japanese tech giant pull out of the handheld arena to instead focus its energies on its home console line – which, based on the robust performance of the PS4, was a wise move.
Since then, Nintendo has consolidated its domestic and handheld businesses into one platform, the Switch, which is closing in on 100 million units sold since 2017. Given the state of the market now, it’s highly unlikely that Sony would consider venturing into handhelds again (and is the Switch even a ‘proper’ handheld console?), but designers Andrea Gallarini and Nicola Pezzotti have cooked up some concept renders which show just what a ‘next gen’ PlayStation Portable could look like.
Of course, the unit borrows many ideas from the Switch – including a wireless charging dock which sees the console slide in horizontally rather than vertically – and the overall design is very close to that of Nintendo’s machine. While this dream system doesn’t seem to physically ‘dock’ with the TV, it does feature connectivity which allows players to fling gameplay to their television wirelessly, allowing one person to play on the console while the other picks up a DualShock controller and uses the main TV screen.
While these renders certainly look the part and could easily be mistaken for official Sony shots, it’s unlikely that the ‘2022 PlayStation Portable’ will become a reality any time soon.
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