Unfortunately, for western PlayStation gamers, PocketStation was nothing more than a mirage, something seen in tiny JPEGs on the late-‘90s Internet and in the pages of PSM. It was only released in Japan – it launched in early 1999 – and was discontinued as the PSone waned in popularity early in the 21st century.
But something mysterious started making the rounds in Japan over the past week in the form of the strange video below.Then, Sony came right out and said it in the next video: PocketStation is coming back, at least in the form of an app on PlayStation Vita.The above video says, in short, that “on November 5th, 2013 (yesterday), the PocketStation is being reborn for the PlayStation Vita!” Supported games include Crash Bandicoot 3, the Mega Man titles, The Legend of Dragoon, Spyro, Hot Shots Golf 2, and IQ Final. It seems that PocketStation on Vita will basically access the data built-in to PocketStation-enabled PSone Classics and let you access those features. Pretty neat!
While some western games actually had PocketStation support in anticipation of its release in the States, PocketStation was Japanese-only, and so it’s unlikely this app will ever come to the west on Vita. However, we’ve reached out to Sony for clarification and will update when we hear back. Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter.