Sony Files Trademark For New Handheld In Japan

[Conrad Zimmerman]

Sony Files Trademark For New Handheld In Japan

Trademark application spurs rumors of new PlayStation Vita redesign.

The PlayStation Vita may be due for another revision. A trademark application filed in Japan earlier this month by Sony Computer Entertainment has surfaced, suggesting that a new iteration of the handheld gaming console is on the way.

An image included in the application shows a design which very closely resembles the slim Vita we know today, but with what appears to be an additional cavity or panel on the left side of the device. The size and shape of this addition has been leading some to speculate that it could be home to an HDMI port.

It was widely believed that the Vita would support video output through an "accessory port" included in its original design, but it didn't come to pass as Sony opted to instead release PlayStation TV as a way of playing Vita titles on larger screens. The accessory port was subsequently removed in the slimmer, PCH-2000 hardware revision released in 2013.

Another notable difference between the slim Vita model and the application's image can be seen on the top of the handheld. Rather than one panel covering the PS Vita game card port as found on current Vita models, we see two offset panels, nearly identical to the design of the original Vita.

The image also lacks a few familiar features. While all of the face buttons are present and accounted for on the image, there are no buttons for power or volume control. While you could probably get away without a dedicated button for powering on the device at this point, not having them for volume control seems unthinkable, suggesting that their absence in the image is either an oversight or they have been concealed in some way, perhaps by one of the new panels.

While the image raises many questions, the application [https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/tmp/TD/sybsD2CE341D6B9B9DD9911A0185746A6C4F/20150421052705318/20150421052705319.gif] does confirm we won't see a return to ultra-bright OLED displays. Filed April 1, the description (as translated by Google) pertains to a "portable LCD screen game machine."

Sources: NeoGAF [https://twitter.com/trademark_bot/status/590044236822753281]

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[Doom972]

Seems a bit pointless when they could make a new Xperia gaming handheld. It could have its own next-gen exclusive games and be able to run existing android apps.

 

[Norix596]

I would have thought their approach to handhelds going forward would be to try to distinguish it as far from the Vita as possible, if only to appease stockholders.

 

[Lightknight]

No reason that volume can't be handled by the touch screen I suppose.

The weakness of Playstations handhelds (and I've owned them both) has always been the clear lack of game support as well as their ridiculous refusal to allow standard micro memory sticks as opposed to their audaciously expensive proprietary ones.

Them beginning to allow indie games is a nice touch but that memory issue also impacts game storage in a negative way. I did not start buying games for my PSP until I got a larger memory stick for cheap and Sony is just shooting themselves in the foot there.

I hope there's something interesting about these though. It'd be nice if they could conveniently play movies and such.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Maybe, just maybe, it's a Vita revision that takes either SD card derivative or both an SD and the old propriety money sink cards. It might be too late for the Vita to even remotely catch up to the 3DS in North America, but a device or adapter that takes SD might sway over enough customers to justify developing the revision and move a few more games.

Them beginning to allow indie games is a nice touch but that memory issue also impacts game storage in a negative way. I did not start buying games for my PSP until I got a larger memory stick for cheap and Sony is just shooting themselves in the foot there.

I only started buying stuff from the PSN Store a year ago, when I got a no name SD micro to MS Pro Duo adapter and the included 32GB Sandisk card, which together cost less than a 16 GB MS Pro Duo. It was risky with the no name, but it's working fine so far.

It's kinda funny how I had to jump through some hoops in order to justify buying things from them. They might have scared off pirates with the high Vita memory costs, but they also lost most of their loyal customers, like me, in the process. If a decent SD adapter came out, memory prices were slashed by at least 30%, or new Vita supported SD, I'd buy a Vita. Losing the proprietary charging/sync connector would also help.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Is it just me or is it really sad that Sony still can't design a decent handheld gaming console? They keep trying to make it as a one piece gadget. They should take a hint from Nintendo's 3DS and Nvidia's Shield. What do they have in common, I wonder?

 

[Quellist]

Pfft. The new Vita isn't a patch on the old anyway. I'll keep my OLED screen thankyou very much Sony. You want to make a new vita? trash the current model and go back to the original!

 

[AgentCooper]

Is it just me or is it really sad that Sony still can't design a decent handheld gaming console? They keep trying to make it as a one piece gadget. They should take a hint from Nintendo's 3DS and Nvidia's Shield. What do they have in common, I wonder?

Seriously? What is wrong with the design? Everything is functional and nothing feels counter ergonomic.

 

[Colt47]

Maybe, just maybe, it's a Vita revision that takes either SD card derivative or both an SD and the old propriety money sink cards. It might be too late for the Vita to even remotely catch up to the 3DS in North America, but a device or adapter that takes SD might sway over enough customers to justify developing the revision and move a few more games.

Them beginning to allow indie games is a nice touch but that memory issue also impacts game storage in a negative way. I did not start buying games for my PSP until I got a larger memory stick for cheap and Sony is just shooting themselves in the foot there.

I only started buying stuff from the PSN Store a year ago, when I got a no name SD micro to MS Pro Duo adapter and the included 32GB Sandisk card, which together cost less than a 16 GB MS Pro Duo. It was risky with the no name, but it's working fine so far.

It's kinda funny how I had to jump through some hoops in order to justify buying things from them. They might have scared off pirates with the high Vita memory costs, but they also lost most of their loyal customers, like me, in the process. If a decent SD adapter came out, memory prices were slashed by at least 30%, or new Vita supported SD, I'd buy a Vita. Losing the proprietary charging/sync connector would also help.

I find the problem with sony is less the price of the peripheral add ons and more so the fact they are trying to do what Sega did with the Nomad and Game Gear. Basically, they got a handheld system that plays home console style games. That's great... except I'd rather play those on a home console and not a handheld.

Heck, the only reason Nintendo is still afloat is because they are staying behind the curve on tech, so they aren't feeling the escallating development costs and therefore can sustain themselves on the Japanese market and a semi-successful US market.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I find the problem with sony is less the price of the peripheral add ons and more so the fact they are trying to do what Sega did with the Nomad and Game Gear. Basically, they got a handheld system that plays home console style games. That's great... except I'd rather play those on a home console and not a handheld.

Heck, the only reason Nintendo is still afloat is because they are staying behind the curve on tech, so they aren't feeling the escallating development costs and therefore can sustain themselves on the Japanese market and a semi-successful US market.

Actually, I couldn't agree more. The expensive peripherals add onto the overall cost of ownership, but the amount of tech they had to cram into the Vita is too much for something that is supposed to be carried around and play games. The 3G option was near-useless. I didn't care about the touch screen and felt a rear touch panel was beyond excessive. Those things, along with what you said about the extra handware (and the developers unspoken obligation to fully use that hardware), made it way too expensive at launch, and now (both to own and to make games for). Sony was trying to appeal too much to their hi-fi/tech fan crowd, that buys $1000 mp3 players, when the PSP's successor just needed a little boost in power and the second analog nub.


(That said, I would buy one at some of the current prices I've seen online, if only a solution to those outrageous memory prices presented itself. Maybe still, I'll just wait to see what this thing they just trademarked really is. Gotta love price drops caused by obsolescence.)

 

[Colt47]

I find the problem with sony is less the price of the peripheral add ons and more so the fact they are trying to do what Sega did with the Nomad and Game Gear. Basically, they got a handheld system that plays home console style games. That's great... except I'd rather play those on a home console and not a handheld.

Heck, the only reason Nintendo is still afloat is because they are staying behind the curve on tech, so they aren't feeling the escallating development costs and therefore can sustain themselves on the Japanese market and a semi-successful US market.

Actually, I couldn't agree more. The expensive peripherals add onto the overall cost of ownership, but the amount of tech they had to cram into the Vita is too much for something that is supposed to be carried around and play games. The 3G option was near-useless. I didn't care about the touch screen and felt a rear touch panel was beyond excessive. Those things, along with what you said about the extra handware (and the developers unspoken obligation to fully use that hardware), made it way too expensive at launch, and now (both to own and to make games for). Sony was trying to appeal too much to their hi-fi/tech fan crowd, that buys $1000 mp3 players, when the PSP's successor just needed a little boost in power and the second analog nub.


(That said, I would buy one at some of the current prices I've seen online, if only a solution to those outrageous memory prices presented itself. Maybe still, I'll just wait to see what this thing they just trademarked really is. Gotta love price drops caused by obsolescence.)

Yeah, I mean it's frusterating when childhood favorite games like Majora's mask or continuations to certain series like Valkyria Chronicles end up getting developed for these handheld platforms over a decent console. Japan must have a very rampant mobile gaming population to support some of these developments.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Yeah, I mean it's frusterating when childhood favorite games like Majora's mask or continuations to certain series like Valkyria Chronicles end up getting developed for these handheld platforms over a decent console. Japan must have a very rampant mobile gaming population to support some of these developments.

Indeed, Japan has a big market for portable games, because of the tight living quarters (and with that, less TVs to take up space) and the daily commutes for much of the population. That is probably a major reason why the Vita is still even alive today and Nintendo still practically prints money with its portables.

It is said that when they make you jump between home and handhelds to finish a narrative arc, though.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

oh yeah, the Vita exists. I find it hilarious how at this point Sony has basically dropped support of it (their own freaking hardware!). They just don't have a clue at how to make or sell a handheld.

 

[Lightknight]

Is it just me or is it really sad that Sony still can't design a decent handheld gaming console? They keep trying to make it as a one piece gadget. They should take a hint from Nintendo's 3DS and Nvidia's Shield. What do they have in common, I wonder?

First off, Nvidia Shield? The Vita Is doing better than that. Maybe Nvidia should take a hint from Sony? The shield is basically just an Android device with even fewer decent games available for it than the Vita and that's saying something with the Vita being one of the most limited systems there are where games catalogues are concerned.

As far as designing a decent handheld gaming console? The vita is technologically light years ahead of the DS. The difference is that Sony's handheld division is not Nintendo's handheld division. Nintendo has a ton of games available for it and it also benefits from being a kid-friendly console which makes it the parent's go to device. It's also cheaper than the Vita by a decent margin.

If the Vita had games, they would be a compelling purchase. But they limited the hardware in storage space which limits the purchases of games which limits the profit to support future game development. It's a nice vicious circle they've created for themselves just because they don't want to use standard media storage. They've lost more money from me due to a lack of storage than they would have gotten from me in game sales.

The Vita is hands down the second most successful handheld on the market. The problem is, that's only 16.5% of the handheld market at 10.3 Million units. They could be better if they were compelling customers in any ways. But look at their game lineup for this year:

http://www.ign.com/games/upcoming/vita

The most exciting titles are indie games or ports (like Borderlands games).

In the future, if they plan on being successful they need to address the micro SD issue and they need to have a couple development studios to release quality games for the console. It would help if they had a significant number of kid games too. Lego titles are a good direction to go in that area and we do see them releasing two this year.

 

[shrekfan246]

Is it just me or is it really sad that Sony still can't design a decent handheld gaming console? They keep trying to make it as a one piece gadget. They should take a hint from Nintendo's 3DS and Nvidia's Shield. What do they have in common, I wonder?

"One-piece-gadget" isn't mutually exclusive from "decent handheld gaming console".

The Vita is a great handheld gaming console. Its capabilities as a gaming console are in no way held back by anything else present within the device, and as far as pure usability is concerned I would argue that it's far better than the (original) 3DS ever was.

Now, its main problem does come from the "one-piece-gadget" stuff, but that's more because experimental crap only very infrequently actually works on handheld devices, so it has a lot of bits and bobs that are never used but add to the overall cost of manufacturing. Also prohibitively expensive proprietary memory sticks and the fact that Sony all but dropped official support for it, which meant that it has mostly become a place to find niche Japanese titles (and it's great for those).

 

[WeepingAngels]

Is it just me or is it really sad that Sony still can't design a decent handheld gaming console? They keep trying to make it as a one piece gadget. They should take a hint from Nintendo's 3DS and Nvidia's Shield. What do they have in common, I wonder?

Could you be more specific? What specifically is wrong with the Vita hardware or design?

 

[Baresark]

Sony barely supports the Vita, why do an updated version of it? I own one and I think it's fantastic, but I'm mad about how little support it gets.

The fact that most of this article is based on that one GAF thread is rubbing me wrong. It's just a bunch of Vita fanboys gushing about shit they don't know about.

Haha, I am reminded of the 8-bit Philosophy asking if you can trust the media. It's not even actually sourced from a reliable source, just a bunch of people who think they know what's happening with crazy amounts of speculation.

 

[Souplex]

Sony...
Just stop.
Please.
Sony; we need to talk. Throwing money onto a fire won't put it out, it will just waste money. You see the PS4? It's doing amazing. Underwrite the development for some more PS4 games. You've made it abundantly clear that you have no future in the handheld market and should go exclusively for home consoles.
...Now to have an inverse of this intervention with Nintendo.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Sony barely supports the Vita, why do an updated version of it? I own one and I think it's fantastic, but I'm mad about how little support it gets.

Yeah, I need a lot more good faith before I try my hand at a new Sony handheld console. The Vita has just been absolutely ignored by Sony as of late, the only games coming out on it that have interested me have been games that I already own somewhere else and can't be bothered to buy a second time.

I've still got some games yet to play, but I was sort of banking on them releasing a single a single new game I'd want to play in the 2 years that I've owned it.

Most of its support seems to be in the form of softcore anime porn games, such as the one where you rub off the clothing of scantily clad preteens for some sort of benefit in game. Frankly I'm surprised that a portable game console, one that you're playing in full public view, is getting so much attention from games like that.