While Sony has been dominating the market for high-end video game consoles for the living room for the better part of the past three decades, it never really cracked the code for handheld gaming devices. While the PlayStation Portable (PSP), released in 2004, sold a respectable 76 million units over its 10-year lifespan, Nintendo moved twice as many units of the popular Nintendo DS, which was released in the same year.
The PSP鈥檚 successor, the PlayStation Vita arrived in 2011/2012 and despite a strong start, sales quickly dwindled and ultimately disappointed. The fact that Sony refused to disclose sales data for the Vita while released since 1994 speaks for itself. Estimates from various sources put Vita lifetime sales around 15 million units, which partly explains why Sony temporarily gave up on handheld gaming afterwards. Asked about a potential Vita successor in 2015, Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, said that the climate was 鈥渘ot healthy鈥 for handheld devices, due to the 鈥渉uge dominance of mobile gaming.鈥
Eight years later, Sony seems to be dipping its toes into handheld gaming again. But while we know that the device codenamed 鈥淧roject Q鈥 will stream PS5 games via Remote Play, require Wi-Fi and arrive later this year, we know little else at this point.
