You can play a bunch of Super Nintendo games all by plugging one cute, official mini-console into your TV, so why not PlayStation? It takes some doing to make things like the SNES Classic Edition happen - licensing old games, manufacturing the new models, boring business stuff like that - but at least now we know that Sony has given some thought to the idea thanks to a translated quote from Japanese publication Mantan Web.
With all the mini revivals happening recently (NES, SNES, Mega Drive/Genesis, Neo Geo), SIE's CEO John Kodera got inevitably asked about releasing a revival edition of PS[1]https://t.co/ri5JcT1yyd pic.twitter.com/TxZ7TGxN3jMay 23, 2018
In case you can't read the translation furnished by Twitter user BlackKite (who specializes in translating Japanese gaming news), here's the important part. First, PlayStation boss John Kodera says there are no official plans he can discuss regarding a dedicated PlayStation revival system. But also: "Our company is always digging up past assets, and I think there are various ways to do it. There have been discussions happening (in the company) on what kind of ways there are."
I've been studying Japanese for a while and can confirm the overall gist of that statement from my more-limited knowledge of the language. And yeah, I also fed it into Google Translate just to make sure I wasn't totally off base. But enough about linguistics!
The prospect of a plug-and-play PlayStation nostalgia machine is tantalizing, though I think storage could be a big problem if Sony goes the same route as Nintendo's micro models; that is, bundling dozens of games together all in one affordable little emulation machine. This is because PlayStation games were able to integrate previously unthinkable quantities of space-intensive stuff like voice acting in Metal Gear Solid or lengthy CGI cutscenes in Final Fantasy 7 thanks to their relatively new CD-ROM storage medium.
Even though 650mb of data isn't much these days, bundling together more than a handful of PlayStation games (especially multi-disc monsters like FF7 or MGS) in one place could become pricey fast. Where Nintendo's paying peanuts for a couple hundred megabytes of storage with room to spare for player saves and a dedicated operating system, Sony would need to pay significantly more just to store a single game. In other words, if Sony ever does make a PlayStation mini of its own, you could probably either have a bunch of games built in or an impulse-purchase price tag. Not both.
But Kodera himself said "there are various ways to do it," so I trust that Sony could work out some way to make the whole thing fun and profitable. Assuming it does…
Looking for something more modern? Check out our list of the best PS4 games!
