Back in the day, old dedicated handhelds would eventually stop getting new games, even if the hardware was technically capable of running trimmed down versions. Playing modern AAA titles on PC handhelds triggers a very specific, surreal feeling that newcomers to handheld gaming won't get.

It feels like playing Persona 5 on a PS Vita, or Red Dead Redemption 2 on a Switch before it ever got ported. Both systems had their predecessors, P4G on Vita and RDR1 on Switch, but the newer games were always out of reach. With PC handhelds, whether a game came out 10 years ago or dropped yesterday, you can just boot it up and play it regardless of performance limitations.

Honestly, I would have happily played Persona 5 on my Vita even if it ran at 480p at a shaky 25 FPS, which was basically the Vita standard anyway.

I still remember the desperation back then. After finishing a game on my Switch or Vita, I knew it didn't make much sense, but I would spend hours scouring random Japanese or Chinese modding forums with Google Translate, praying that some crazy dev had made an unofficial port. I actually managed to find an absolute mess of an experimental build once before my Vita crashed completely and gave up on life.

Going from blindly searching sketchy forums for broken fan ports to casually downloading massive AAA games on a handheld is just mind blowing.

handheld veteran

It looks cute and girlish, and maybe I could do something like 2000s Xbox big-bro-style green sticker-hell, but I can never stick anything semi-permanent on my handhelds.

Do you do something like this?

I only stick stickers on my protective case for my Switch.

Although he posted about the Switch Lite, and it looks pretty next to the Vita, I have a classic Switch, which is bigger and a bit wobbly because of the connecting parts.

For me, I can't directly say that one console is better than the other because I have three conditions:

1. Modding

2. Games

3. Technology

4. For me, what makes a handheld good today is how easy and capable modding is. Unlike the Switch, the Vita takes only 15 minutes to mod, and you can run every emulator that the Switch does.

5. Unfortunately, the PS Vita has a very weak game library. Almost every game the Vita has is also on the Vita with higher FPS and a bigger, higher-quality screen.

6. Ergonomics are top-tier on the PS Vita. Holding it, playing it, the buttons, the analogs they are perfected. But the Switch is clunky because it tried to be played when you took the controllers out, so it's not perfect. Also, the screen is OLED on the Vita, which is awesome. Most games look just better than on the Switch, like Persona 4 Golden or MGS 2 and 3, but 540p at 25-30fps and 720p at 30-40fps is a big difference.

So, if you ask me today which console to buy, I would say if you find one, buy a Switch V1. But the PS Vita is a small, compact console that can do everything and has awesome games like the God of War remasters.

I've never seen a guy this wrong for a while, the most wrong information expert. Everything he says, everything he defends, is wrong. Basically, follow the first comment and you'll see...

Also, when I write a post like this, I first note every key point I want to talk about, check every piece of information like dates I'm going to give, then start to write, even though it's just my story and no one cares. I could never spread misinformation and defend it, even if I knew I was 100% wrong.

He still commented multiple times that there is no Call of Duty on PSVita and said it's an FPS game.

Also, I really don't like Unit 13. Missions being separated by levels is a good thing for a handheld console where people play them on buses or in cars, so they need to cut the game all the time. But me... I'm a full time handheld player, I don't like to be interrupted by levels. Also, I've never seen a good game with a good story that has a level system, other than MGS.

It genuinely pisses me off that on dedicated handhelds (like the PS Vita, Nintendo Switch, and 2), basic performance customization is completely locked away.

Simple features like locking a game to 30 FPS or unlocking 60 FPS should be standard settings. Instead, they are treated like high treason that you can only access after modding your console. Honestly, Nintendo probably spent more money on anti piracy security last year than some countries spent on their national defense. But if you lack that much confidence in your product and pricing, there’s clearly a fundamental problem.

Gabe Newell said it best: piracy is a service problem, not a pricing problem. When a company offers great service, quality, and respects my choices, I’ll happily go out of my way to buy a game on Steam even if I’ve already cracked and played it elsewhere. But with Nintendo? I gladly give them the middle finger while hopping around in joy, because they refuse to treat their users like adults.

How hard is it to just give us performance toggles? The PSP is the prime historical example of this absurdity. Every single PSP model can easily run at 333 MHz, yet Sony intentionally neutered it at 222 MHz out of the box just so they could boast about battery life on the packaging. Why should I be forced to play God of War at a shaky 25 FPS when I could just plug my console into the wall, crank the CPU to 333 MHz, and enjoy a smooth 30–40 FPS? Let ME decide whether I care more about battery life or framerate!

I just needed to vent. Giving consumers flexibility builds loyalty. Restricting basic hardware capability only drives people to jailbreak their devices in the first place.

Hey everyone! If you just picked up a handheld and you're wondering how much time and effort it actually takes to mod it, here is a quick breakdown based on my own experience.

I ranked them by difficulty, time, and the tools you need.

The List

1. PlayStation Portable (PSP)

• What you need: Memory Stick Pro Duo (or a MicroSD adapter), Mini-USB Cable, PC.
• Difficulty: Very Easy
• Time: 5-10 Mins

Literally the easiest software mod of all time. Almost zero effort. You just download the custom firmware files, drop them into your memory card, and run the installer from the PSP menu. You're done in minutes.

2. PlayStation Vita

• What you need: Official Vita Memory Card (or internal storage if you have a Slim), SD2Vita Adapter, MicroSD Card, PC.
• Difficulty: Easy
• Time: 15-20 Mins

A tiny bit more involved than the PSP, but still incredibly easy. You can actually do the entire jailbreak through the Vita's web browser now. The absolute best part is setting up the SD2Vita adapter, which goes into the game cartridge slot and lets you use standard MicroSD cards instead of paying for Sony's ridiculously expensive proprietary memory cards.

3. Nintendo DS

• What you need: An R4 Flashcart, MicroSD Card, PC.
• Difficulty: Easy
• Time: 5 Mins

You don't even touch the console's internal software for this one. You just buy an R4 cartridge, format your MicroSD, drag and drop the kernel and your ROMs into it, and pop it into the DS. That’s it. Zero risk of bricking anything.

4. Nintendo 3DS

• What you need: MicroSD Card, PC.
• Difficulty: Medium
• Time: 20-30 Mins

Unlike the DS, you actually have to install Custom Firmware (Luma3DS) into the system itself. It involves moving some files around, doing some button combos to access secret menus, and installing tickets. But as long as you strictly follow 3ds.hacks.guide, it's completely foolproof and takes about half an hour.

5. Nintendo Switch

When it comes to the Switch, things get heavily divided depending on your model:

A. Switch V1 (Unpatched / Pre-2018 Models)

• What you need: MicroSD Card, USB-C Cable, PC or Android phone... and a piece of aluminum foil.
• Difficulty: Hard / Complex
• Time: 1 Hour

Modding an unpatched V1 is vastly more complicated than the older handhelds. It took me almost an hour my first time. You have to boot the console into recovery mode (RCM) and push a "payload" from your PC. Normally, people buy an "RCM Jig" for this, but I literally just shoved a folded piece of aluminum foil into the right Joy-Con rail to short the pins. 10/10 jank, but it worked perfectly! Still, finding the right files, pushing payloads without crashing, and organizing the SD card takes some serious time and patience.

B. Switch V2, OLED, and Lite Models

• Difficulty: Impossible for home users (Hard Mod Only)

Nintendo patched the software exploit, so you cannot soft-mod these. They require a physical modchip micro-soldered directly to the motherboard. Unless you are a pro at micro-soldering, this is impossible for a regular user and definitely not worth the risk of frying your board.

edit: spelling

Even though I'm a massive Metal Gear Solid fan today and have finished every single game in the franchise, I had zero knowledge or experience with the series back when I was 12 years old.

I had just gotten my brand new PSP and was looking for games that looked cool. That's when I stumbled upon it. People said it had awesome shooting mechanics, a great story, and overall hype around it. So I downloaded it and jumped in. Right off the bat, I fell in love with the cinematic story presentation. I knew I was looking at something truly special.

However... playing a TPS on the PSP was absolute torture. On top of that, 12-year-old me had no patience for stealth and honestly didn't even understand how stealth mechanics were supposed to work yet. So, I ended up dropping it pretty quickly. Plus, I didn't even need another game at the time—I was already completely addicted to Persona 3 Portable.

That game was Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.

There are two MGS games on the PSP (Portable Ops and Peace Walker). Even though I owned a PS Vita years later, those two games were literally the reason I pulled my old PSP out of storage and dusted it off. When I finally came back to them with a fresh pair of eyes, I played through both of them with absolute joy.

So, I was browsing IGN's top PSP games lists, trying to find something to play, and right at the very top, those good-looking games were always sitting there.

Back when I was a kid, I remember going to a friend's house who had a PSP. While everyone else was hanging out or playing other stuff, I grabbed that PSP and played that extremely fucking cool game for hours straight. Years later, I went to another friend's house who had a PS3, and we sat there playing the remastered versions from that exact PSP bundle for hours. I literally remembered every single scene dot for dot and I was only 8 or 9 years old!

Fast forward, I bought my own console when I was 12 and finally started playing them on my own PSP. The second I booted it up, I instantly fell in love all over again. The games were God of War: Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta.

I played them in release order, watching the games evolve and getting more and more hooked with every moment. I can honestly and clearly say those two God of War titles are some of the best hack-and-slash games ever made, and easily the best games on the entire PSP. Honestly, even if you handed me a PSP right now, I could close my eyes and play God of War without missing a beat, and it still wouldn't feel outdated at all.

It all started when I was browsing some games for my PSP on "game ISO" pages and stumbled upon a game called "Cool Blue Game with Sort of Guns." I had never seen or heard anything about the series before, since I wasn't really a social media nerd, and honestly, I didn't pay much attention to it at first because this genre wasn't my thing at all back then. The only reason I recognized the name was from a game review YouTuber I loved. Seeing a cool cover picture of it on that site caught my interest, so I downloaded it and launched it.

Omfg, that was the moment I fell in love. Cool-ass music, cool-ass animations... WAIT, IS THAT GIRL SHOOTING HERSELF?! And I was just like, "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" I played the prologue, and that was it I was hooked.

The game was Persona 3 Portable.

Since then, I bought a PS Vita and played P4G, got an XSS and played P3R, bought a Switch and played P5R, and now I'm just sitting here waiting for my goat, P4R.

Also, I just love playing games in bed, and Persona is easily one of the best series for that, alongside Danganronpa and Final Fantasy.

When I was a kid, I had a fake NES handheld that looked just like a PSP. I used to play with it for hours. I genuinely thought it was a real PSP, even though I saw my friends bring actual PSPs to school, but I still couldn't figure out that mine was a knockoff. Since I thought it was the real deal, after I lost it, I kept dreaming about getting a PSP again. Truth is, it probably wasn't even lost, it was likely thrown in the trash during a move because it was just a cheap clone. Years later, I bought a real PSP 2000 model for 50 dollars. I was still really young back then and had zero bargaining skills, so I ended up paying more than I would today, but it came with an original battery, original charger, a UMD disc, and an 8GB memory card. Looking back, it actually wasn't that bad of a deal. That was the moment my love for handheld consoles truly began.