Hacked Nintendo Switch consoles could eventually run PS Vita games without emulation thanks to vita2hos

The Nintendo Switch is a current-gen handheld game console that was first released in 2017. The PlayStation Vita is an older, smaller, and discontinued handheld game console released in 2012. And they’re similar enough that a hacker has found a way that you might one day be able to run PS Vita games on a Nintendo Switch without even using an emulator.

Developer Sergi Granelli has released a (very) early build of a tool called vita2hos that allows some software written for the PS Vita to run natively on a Nintendo Switch.

At this point the software is very much a work in progress – Granelli says it’s at the “proof of concept” stage and is only able to “run some simple CPU-rendered homebrew” games with very limited support for 3D graphics. It’s unclear if or when you’ll be able to actually run commercial PS Vita games on a Nintendo Switch using vita2hos.

But the basic idea behind the software is that it allows software written for the PS Vita’s ARMv7 processor to run on a Nintendo Switch’s ARmv8 processor in 32-bit execution mode, translating modules created for the Vita to use similar routines on the Switch.

In other words, it’s not an emulator, but rather a compatibility layer much like WINE or CrossOver software which allows you to run some Windows software on Mac or Linux computers.

Unfortunately, Granelli says “the most difficult task is shader translation” from the PS Vita’s graphics processor to NVIDIA’s, which is why you can only run some homebrew games and applications through vita2hos so far.

You’ll also need a hacked Nintendo Switch capable of running custom software in order to make use of vita2hos in the first place… although the vita2hos GitHub page also includes instructions for using the software in Nintendo Switch emulators including Yuzu and Ryujinx. So theoretically you could run PS Vita games natively in… a Nintendo Switch emulator.

Or you could just use a PS Vita emulator like Vita3k, I suppose.

via exputer, HackADay, and Modern Vintage Gamer (YouTube)