Why Sony’s next handheld should look to the Xperia Play and Vita for inspiration

The year was 2005. During the summer break, I was expecting an important package. It was an imported Sony PlayStation Portable from Japan, as the device hadn’t arrived in Europe just yet. What began was an odyssey of how Sony got the gaming handheld market right for so many years, resulting in me owning several devices the tech giant produced, including the Xperia Play smartphone. With rumors that Sony is returning to the handheld category soon, I think the company needs to look to its past to perfect what this upcoming handheld must do.

First, we need to look back at Sony’s two previous attempts to see how it can shape its newest effort if rumors turn out to be true. The PSP and Vita were fantastic devices. I imported the former and pre-ordered the latter, and I loved using them. They were ubiquitously Sony, with the design of the handhelds making them a clear younger brother of the home consoles available at the time. Their unique operating systems, called the XMB and the LiveArea, respectively, gave the handhelds an almost whimsical feel.

This only elevated further when PlayStation 1 games were made available on the devices, meaning I could play titles like Tomb Raider II, Metal Gear Solid, and lots more. But what I loved was playing Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories in the Sixth Form common room with a group of friends in multiplayer mode, thinking at the time that this was the future. Considering five years before that, we were all playing Pokémon Gold and Silver on our Game Boy Color handhelds, life moved fast in the handheld space.

The PS Vita, released in 2012, only elevated everything that the PSP brought and finally got rid of the Universal Media Disc (UMD) slot. A model was even available in 3G, so games and more could be downloaded without a Wi-Fi connection. Its improvements aren’t too dissimilar to the leap from the original Nintendo Switch to the Nintendo Switch 2 in the design and power differences.

Both handhelds reflect a changing market, and at the time, Sony thought it had something special. I still have my PS Vita in my backpack, along with my Switch 2. Being able to play all the best PS Vita games and PS1 classics on that device with its OLED screen is still a delight, and I still think it’s one of the best handhelds ever made. Unfortunately, many gamers didn’t at the time, causing Sony to eventually exit the gaming handheld space in 2014.

But in between the PSP and the PS Vita was the Xperia Play, released in mid-2011. Looking like a PSP Go with its slide-out controls and PlayStation buttons, this smartphone was heavily rumored during this time, as many thought a PlayStation phone would be the perfect rival to Apple’s iPhone 4 at the time. The Xperia Play had some great features, such as PlayStation Mobile. The app would let owners play classic PlayStation games like Crash Bandicoot and MediEvil, as well as compatible PSP and eventually PS Vita games.

Unfortunately, users were confused by Sony, as the PS Vita was about to be released, and so they had to choose between an Xperia Play and a PS Vita, when many just wanted them to become one device. Since then, it was discovered that a follow-up was in development but quickly scrapped, as the ship had sailed once 2013 rolled round, but a sample has been found and preserved. However, there’s still an active community for the Xperia Play, such as on Reddit and in many YouTube retrospectives.

As it stands in 2025, there are many rumors that Sony is considering coming back to the gaming handheld space, and I more than welcome it. It’s no secret that Apple has consistently been confused with gaming, despite pushing services like Apple Arcade. There’s also the fact that there are many gaming handhelds available right now, from Steam Deck OLED to alternatives like the Lenovo Legion Go, as well as Android handhelds like the upcoming Ayaneo Pocket S2 and Anbernic RG Slide.

But Sony has the unique position of what it has with its past library, as well as what it’s achieved in the handheld space with the PSP, Vita, and Xperia Play. For its next handheld, it should keep the slide-out design of the Xperia Play but have the buttons from the DualSense PS5 controller, as well as the trackpad. That could be a great feature to use in games and could save players from touching the display, as well as making it easier for previous PlayStation games to port over to this handheld.

3G in both the PS Vita and Xperia Play devices was a great feature, as it meant you could take part in online multiplayer matches as well as download new games as long as you had a strong cellular signal. It’s something that’s a slight disadvantage for Switch 2, especially for games like the Hitman World of Assassination collection that require a constant online connection. Having a new Sony handheld with 4G at a minimum would solve this issue straightaway. I regularly connect my Switch 2 to my iPhone 15 Pro Max when I’m out to play Fortnite, and on 5G, I don’t experience heavy lag that hampers the experience.

There was also the exclusive PlayStation Mobile app on the Xperia Play, allowing users to legally download classic PlayStation games and more. This could be the handheld’s killer feature, especially when it’s an open secret that many users out there are playing games from previous PlayStation generations on some of the best retro handhelds. To offer genuine services like this with unique features like online multiplayer, a GameChat-like experience, and more could give Sony an even better fighting chance in the handheld space.

Granted, I could list five more features that this supposed new handheld could take from the Xperia Play, as well as the PSP and Vita. But when it comes down to it, Sony has a real chance of offering something separate from the long list of Steam Deck alternatives and the Nintendo Switch 2. It can leverage its own nostalgia whilst offering something new. Sony has been known to improve upon what it had before, such as the jump from PlayStation 3 to 4 with a better framework for developers to work on, as well as a more approachable user interface.

If it can bring back the feeling I had of playing a multiplayer match of Grand Theft Auto on the go twenty years ago, but with GTA 6 on this future handheld, Sony could have a home run on its hands in the handheld space.

While we wait for Sony to do the right thing and introduce a new version of the Xperia Play or an updated Vita, be sure to check out some more great gaming tech with our guides to the best gaming tablets and the best gaming phones. Or, if we’ve got you feeling a bit nostalgic, check out our guides to the best PSP games, the best DS games, and the best GBA games.