Just when you thought the console homebrew scene had run out of increasingly ridiculous things to do, someone just had to one-up everyone. An experimental port of popular 3DS emulator Azahar is now up and running on the PS Vita. And while it’s still very rough around the edges, one flagship Nintendo game is already somewhat playable on Sony’s handheld.
A recent demonstration uploaded by Willi Ye shows Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS running at roughly 20–28 FPS during an actual match. That’s nowhere near the game’s original 60 FPS, of course. Unsurprisingly, the Vita’s CPU is also being hammered at a rather alarming 100% throughout the demonstration, while the modder admits that not every 3DS game currently runs properly on the experimental port. Still, considering we’re basically asking Sony’s 15-year-old console to emulate a rival handheld with hardware in roughly the same ballpark, it’s a mighty impressive start.
There’s another wrinkle to the project, though. The port is admittedly ‘vibecoded,’ meaning AI has been doing much of the heavy lifting to get this WIP project off the ground. While AI can certainly speed things along, unreviewed code could introduce unintended bugs, additional performance issues, and security vulnerabilities. Or worse, risk bricking the machine if the developer isn’t careful enough. Still, there’s hope that the PS Vita 3DS emulator port could become much more polished down the line.
According to the PS Vita homebrew community, the developer has already acknowledged this concern. He intends to keep working on the project before manually reviewing all of the AI-generated code once he has more results to work with. In other words, don’t go selling your 3DS and hunting down a PS Vita expecting it to suddenly become your all-in-one emulation machine just yet.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time the idea of 3DS emulation on PS Vita has been floated. Veteran homebrew developer Rinnegatamante previously worked on a melonDS port for the handheld years ago. While it ultimately went nowhere, attempts like it have long suggested that getting Nintendo’s last dual-screen handheld running on a PS Vita isn’t entirely out of the question.
And 3DS emulation is hardly the only thing keeping the PS Vita homebrew scene busy lately. Other Nintendo-related homebrew ports that have ended up playable on the system include Banjo-Kazooie, Mario Kart 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and even Twilight Princess. The PS Vita itself can already run PS1 and PSP games natively, alongside emulators for less demanding systems such as the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Dreamcast, plus various arcade cores.
Sony might’ve sentenced the PS Vita to death in 2019, and it’s ready to bury it six feet under by closing its PlayStation Store in July next year. But its fans keep proving one thing: Vita means life.
