Every Sony Console/Handheld Ranked Worst-to-Best: Part 1
CDs, 3D, and DVDs, oh my
Nearly thirty years after the launch of the original PlayStation in the US, Sony as a gaming company just feels inevitable.
This was not always the case. Before the PlayStation emerged in 1994, Sony worked with Nintendo on the ill-fated “Nintendo PlayStation,” a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES not unlike the Sega CD. Business terms were not agreeable to both sides, however, and the hybrid console never got past the prototype phase. Sony went ahead with their own console, now known only as PlayStation, and Nintendo stuck with cartridges for their home consoles until 2001 (the latter seemed insane then, and it’s even more insane now). One of gaming’s greatest what ifs.
Back when the PlayStation came out in ’95, I assumed Sony was just another upstart challenging Nintendo’s much-deserved throne. The N64 would conquer the earth with its brilliantly large cartridges and Sony would be just another electronics giant, like Pioneer and Phillips before them, pretending to know how to make a game console.
But as the 90s rolled on to their inevitable completion, I realized that Nintendo had dropped the polygonal medicine ball with the N64. Not all the great early 3D games were on the original PlayStation, but - let’s be real - the bulk of them were.
Ever since I received a PS1 at the tail end of its life in 2000, Sony has been my second favorite console manufacturer and I’ve indulged in most of its hardware ever since. The following is my highly sophisticated and totally correct list cultivated from many decades of hard-won experience.
#7 – PLAYSTATION VITA
Unlike Nintendo or Microsoft, Sony’s never released an unsuccessful console. Even the Playstation 3, which had a shaky expensive launch in 2006 followed years later by a prolonged network outage in 2011, eventually recovered and sold a few million units more than the Xbox 360 worldwide.
The Playstation Vita, however, is not a console. It is their second handheld device and a complete flop by Sony’s standards. Its predecessor, the PSP, sold around 80 million units, which makes it the most successful gaming handheld not released by Nintendo. The Playstation Vita is estimated to have sold around 17 million units – “estimated” because Sony stopped reporting the sales data for the handheld after its first year. For context, this amount is only 3 ½ million more units than the Wii U, Nintendo’s lowest selling console.
Like the PSP before it, the Vita is a particularly impressive piece of kit. Its OLED touchscreen remains absolutely gorgeous over ten years later, miles better than the 3DS’ LCD screen (although the Vita would later get a revision with an LCD screen, presumably to save costs). Sony’s first-party titles, like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, looked better than PS2 games and nearly on par with PS3. In 2013, the system received Remote Play, which allowed you to play PS4 games on your Vita, similar to the Off-TV Play functionality of the Wii U tablet.
Trouble was, if you didn’t like emulation, indie games, or quirky Japanese titles, the Vita had absolutely nothing for you. Sony stopped supporting the Vita with its own titles by 2014, so third-party publishers/developers had to pick up the slack. Also, the memory cards were Sony’s own proprietary brand, which meant they could charge an exorbitant amount for them. At launch, for example, a 16 GB card cost $69.99, while a 32GB card cost $99.99. As far as I know, even with the PS Vita sales woes, memory card prices never declined.
I’ve played a Vita exactly one time. My friend Jacob bought one in 2012, along with a copy of Uncharted: Golden Abyss (of course). I used the rear touchpad to make Drake move along the cliffside. I marveled at how nice the graphics looked. The handheld itself felt really comfortable to hold. But within a few minutes of play, I gave the Vita back to him and never really thought about it again.
Handhelds, as I’ve already expressed before, aren’t really my jam to begin with, and the Vita isn’t any different. As the years went on and support for the poor thing grew more and more sparse, any potential reason I might want to purchase one vanished, along with the Vita’s hopes of ever being a mainstream success. The Vita still has its diehard fans, and it’s not a poorly developed handheld by any stretch., but for me, it has little reason to exist.
#6 – PLAYSTATION 5
What’s the point of owning a Sony or Microsoft console anymore? Exclusive games are a thing of the past. Sony and Microsoft buy companies just to close them or render them irrelevant. With every passing day, PC feels more and more like the best way to play all the games that aren’t made by Nintendo.
Consoles used to have identities, and those identities were often shaped by their exclusive titles. The PS4 was the only place to play Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, and Spiderman among many others. The PS3 was home to God of War 3, the Little Big Planet series, Metal Gear Solid 4, etc. The PS5 has, according to Wikipedia, 13 games that you can’t play on PC, Switch, or Xbox Series X/S. 2 of these games are VR only, so you have to own the $500+ Playstation VR 2 in addition to the $500 PS5 to play those. 2 of the games – Astro Bot and Wolverine – haven’t been released yet. This leaves 9 games total, and out of these 9, 6 of them have good reviews; the other 3 have mixed-to-poor reviews.
The PS5 is a significantly stronger console than the PS4. It has an SSD drive for faster load times, it’s backwards compatible with PS4 games, it has 4K support, etc. etc. The console’s enough of an upgrade to warrant purchasing for those that love the Sony brand. But nearly four years into the PS5’s lifespan, it’s inexcusable that the console doesn’t have more exclusive games to call its own.
#5 – THE PLAYSTATION PORTABLE
So many gamers circa 2004 really thought the PlayStation Portable was gonna be the handheld to finally destroy Nintendo’s unchallenged fifteen-year run as the Glorious King of All Handhelds. And to be fair, the original Nintendo DS really looked like some bulky piece of plastic you’d find in a Happy Meal or capsule machine; a “kid’s toy,” if you will, and not the cool, expensive kind. The PSP looked sexy and sleek, a device for Our Glorious Technocratic Future. It could play music, movies, and games. The games looked almost as good as PS2 titles. It could “go online.” For all intents and purposes, it should have destroyed the Nintendo DS.
The PSP did not usurp Nintendo’s dual-screened behemoth, but it held its own. For the first few years of its life, the system received the types of games you’d expect for a Sony portable. Miniature versions of God of War, Ratchet and Clank, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo, and Ridge Racer appeared and sold millions of copies. I like some of these series, but having shrunken down versions of them on a handheld didn’t appeal to me.
What did intrigue me, however, was the PSP’s growing number of quirky, smaller titles like Patapon and LocoRoco, and the ever-growing repository of wonderful JRPG remasters and remakes, particularly Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and the Persona 1 and 2 remakes.
In 2009, after a couple years of noticing the PSP’s trajectory from media darling to weirdo portable, I purchased a red God of War PSP with Kratos’ angry mug on the back. Used PSP games were really cheap back then and I picked up a bunch for ten dollars or less, including the aforementioned Patapon and Persona 1 remake, and other strange fantasies like Metal Gear Acid and Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower. For about a year, I dined on the PSP’s buffet of niche oddities.
Unfortunately, I had to sell the bugger. We were moving, we needed money, you know how it goes. I don’t regret selling the God of War PSP model, particularly, but I wouldn’t mind getting another PSP. For me, the handheld is the last time Sony really allowed their creativity to run wild. With their Japanese development studios officially shut down, I fear the unhinged visionary part of Sony’s gaming heritage is truly gone for good.
*images courtesy of Cultured Vultures, Playstation Blog, Game Informer, Engadget, and Wikipedia
Within three years all these consoles had their own exclusive titles and got into their groove… except for the PS5. This is looking more and more like a lost console generation.
All agree. There’s a lot to say here!
When it comes to system architecture, I have this vision that you could quiz gamers with a “Name that console” test, based only on a screenshot or footage or even sounds and music from an extremely obscure game. The point being older consoles can often be identified instantly based on their look and sound, even if you have no idea what game you’re looking at. But there would be no way to do this with newer consoles.