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The PS Vita can’t catch a break when it comes to its sales numbers. There are a ton of reasons, and they are the usual suspects: lack of software, too pricey, bad economy, bought a Nintendo 3DS instead, etc. I’d like to offer my own reason, and that is the Playstation brand just isn’t the juggernaut it used to be. When the PSP was released, it rode the coattails of the can’t-lose PS2. A Playstation on-the-go had massive appeal 10 years ago. Now? Not quite as tantalizing a prospect, at least in this blogger’s opinion.

Given the reigns at Sony, my first act to rejuvenate the PS Vita would be to release a peripheral that would allow the transfer of PS1 and PS2 games to the Vita. Backwards compatibility for the masses! Software emulators would be installed on the PS Vita through a firmware update, aided by an external drive device to port over games (as depicted above).

I’m a huge fan of backwards compatibility (well, any added functionality in general). I was quite perplexed when Sony initially offered backwards compatibility for the PS3, only to remove it soon after. Looking back it made a lot of sense for Sony: PS2 was still selling like mad (and those actually made a profit), and the backwards compatibility inflated the PS3′s already-gargantuan cost. So it made sense for the fiscal health of the PS2 and PS3.

If backwards comparability can be removed for the well-being of a console platform, then why can’t it be introduced to help save a platform? Read the rest of this entry →