Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
The Switch has clearly been a success and there's no way that Sony aren't paying attention. Certainly, the gaming public are aware of this and itching for Sony to get back in the portable game.
We've discussed such a possibility here before, but the conclusion has generally been reached that, in order for it to be a success, it would need to be a portable PS4. As appealing as this is, manufacturing and price constraints dictate that such a device would still be a good few years away from viability i.e. even if the stars somehow aligned for 7nm everything in 2019, with a low power AMD SoC, the cost of such a device would be too high for mass market appeal.
I propose a different route, one on which I would really like people to chime in. I propose, in essence, a DualShock Vita.
Microsoft released their pro controller a couple of years ago IIRC but Sony has yet to follow suit. Sure, they've released so-called pro controllers, but these have all just been wired versions of the DualShock 4, often with a mangled design.
It's about time Sony released a first party pro controller, and capitalised on both their market leading position with the PS4, and their catalogue of portable games.
I'll refer to it as the DualShock V. The design and function, I think, should be as follows:
- Launch at a low price. More expensive than a DualShock 4, but cheaper than a Switch would immediately make it relevant.
- Take the existing DualShock 4, and expand the width enough to fit the smallest possible functional screen in place of its touch pad. 4 inches seems like a pretty good fit: not so small that games can't be played, not so large that the device becomes cumbersome.
- Stick to a 540p screen. A small screen needn't be high resolution, and 540p would perfectly scale 1080p PS4 games.
- Ditch the rear touch pad. It was only ever a novelty and never worked properly. Certainly never intuitively.
- Treat it as a new platform, but make it a piece of cake to port Vita games.
- Ensure that all games which run on the DualShock V also run on the PS4 at 1080p, and on the Pro at 4K, with little to no effort from the developer.
- Use the same save files as the PS4, so you needn't faff with entering into a game and uploading a "cross save." Just upload your saves to the cloud at the system level.
- Use 3 cards for storage. Two Micro SD cards: one for media and captures, one for games. One port for a flash cart, which could be used in future, for a full blown portable system i.e. a cart that could be placed in a future PS4 Portable.
- Use the cheapest possible SoC on the newest but most economical fabrication node, so it's a little bit more powerful than the Vita, but prioritise battery life.
- Implement the same video and screen capture features as the PS4, ensure that it can cast to any compatible display, and give it video out! Sure, if the PS4/Pro can play the same games, they'll always be the better option, but this is enough to compete with the Switch as a budget option.
So, what would others like to see?
I mostly wonder what SoC and memory combination people would like to see, and what fabrication process. More memory's always better, but at what point does it reach diminishing returns?
Would the Vita SoC be viable if manufactured on 16/14/12/10/7nm and then had its clockspeed bumped up to provide a slight performance increase, or would another SoC be as worthwhile?
We've discussed such a possibility here before, but the conclusion has generally been reached that, in order for it to be a success, it would need to be a portable PS4. As appealing as this is, manufacturing and price constraints dictate that such a device would still be a good few years away from viability i.e. even if the stars somehow aligned for 7nm everything in 2019, with a low power AMD SoC, the cost of such a device would be too high for mass market appeal.
I propose a different route, one on which I would really like people to chime in. I propose, in essence, a DualShock Vita.
Microsoft released their pro controller a couple of years ago IIRC but Sony has yet to follow suit. Sure, they've released so-called pro controllers, but these have all just been wired versions of the DualShock 4, often with a mangled design.
It's about time Sony released a first party pro controller, and capitalised on both their market leading position with the PS4, and their catalogue of portable games.
I'll refer to it as the DualShock V. The design and function, I think, should be as follows:
- Launch at a low price. More expensive than a DualShock 4, but cheaper than a Switch would immediately make it relevant.
- Take the existing DualShock 4, and expand the width enough to fit the smallest possible functional screen in place of its touch pad. 4 inches seems like a pretty good fit: not so small that games can't be played, not so large that the device becomes cumbersome.
- Stick to a 540p screen. A small screen needn't be high resolution, and 540p would perfectly scale 1080p PS4 games.
- Ditch the rear touch pad. It was only ever a novelty and never worked properly. Certainly never intuitively.
- Treat it as a new platform, but make it a piece of cake to port Vita games.
- Ensure that all games which run on the DualShock V also run on the PS4 at 1080p, and on the Pro at 4K, with little to no effort from the developer.
- Use the same save files as the PS4, so you needn't faff with entering into a game and uploading a "cross save." Just upload your saves to the cloud at the system level.
- Use 3 cards for storage. Two Micro SD cards: one for media and captures, one for games. One port for a flash cart, which could be used in future, for a full blown portable system i.e. a cart that could be placed in a future PS4 Portable.
- Use the cheapest possible SoC on the newest but most economical fabrication node, so it's a little bit more powerful than the Vita, but prioritise battery life.
- Implement the same video and screen capture features as the PS4, ensure that it can cast to any compatible display, and give it video out! Sure, if the PS4/Pro can play the same games, they'll always be the better option, but this is enough to compete with the Switch as a budget option.
So, what would others like to see?
I mostly wonder what SoC and memory combination people would like to see, and what fabrication process. More memory's always better, but at what point does it reach diminishing returns?
Would the Vita SoC be viable if manufactured on 16/14/12/10/7nm and then had its clockspeed bumped up to provide a slight performance increase, or would another SoC be as worthwhile?
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