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Possible new PlayStation Portal model pays homage to the Vita's OLED

While much of the focus on PlayStation's next steps is the PS6 and PS6 Portable , the two-year old PlayStation Portal could be getting a revamp according to those pesky internet rumours.  Update : Hints at pricing are around £/$250-299 for the new model, but everything remains deeply in rumours territory. Presumably the goal is to hit the 10% (currently 7%-ish) adoption rate among PS5 owners, something that would make it a bone fide hit gadget.   The recent February  PlayStation State of Play  saw no announcement. But, PlayStation needs to make Portal more a core member of the PS5 family, rather than the distant cousin that most of its appearances suggest.  As the improvement in connectivity and streaming tech, proven by many gamers enjoying their PS5 or PlayStation Plus streamed content from around the world, an updated Portal Pro could be on the cards.  Possibly featuring a 120Hz display and an OLED screen in honour of the mighty Vita, that'd be coo...

Vita sales up thanks to PS4, but probably not by much

Industry mag MCV has been talking to Sony and got some numbers out of them about Vita sales. Trouble is they're no good at all. Unlike the Japanese numbers which are based on store sales, and statements from Nintendo where it is happy to talk about passing 2 million UK sales, all Sony offer is a 68% rise during the week that the PS4 launched and by 65% the following week.

So if the Vita sold 1,000 units in the UK before the PS4 launch, it sold 1,680 during PS4 week and 2,772 the next. The real numbers might not be much higher. Why would I think that? Because Sony is so reticent to give the real figures that they have to be appallingly low, and because if Tearaway - the biggest and best Vita game of the year - fails to dent the charts, there really aren't many buyers out there.

Sure, Sony could give us the real numbers and I might be wrong (or staggered at their hugeness) but I doubt it. And since there's no figures on game sales at all, why should any third-party developer care to risk their time and money on a Vita project?

There's also the question of what happened the next week? if sales are tailing off again then the PS4 bump for the Vita was very small indeed based on eager Remote Play users, rather than new gamers. Thank the lord for Indies I guess!

Currently playing on my Vita/PS3/PS4/PS5


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