Exciting times for the Nintendo Switch, and to a lesser extent PSVita emulation, are back with us again thanks to the devotion of their communities. This time with awesome news regarding the Switch’s Android port and some great progress in Vita3K!

Android For The Switch Coming In 5 Days!

Android for Nintendo’s latest console was originally in center stage during February of this year with Max Keller posting a video of a hacked Switch running a development build Android Q (10.0).

Android for the Switch is coming a few days so you’ll be able to use your Switch as a real tablet if you’d like! (Tweet)

This port was nowhere near finished and had some glaring issues such as no GPU acceleration but the community still got pretty hyped up about it. However, the port seemed to have hibernated for a few months until June came by when ByLaws (Billy Laws) rekindled interest in it when he got GPU acceleration working! Ever since then, there have been staggered tweets and Reddit threads about more progress being made but no ETA was given although November was mentioned in some places as a probable release timeframe.

Now, it seems that the ETA is closer than ever before as switchroot (a Switch open-source development group that includes folks who ported Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to console with L4T Ubuntu) published a tweet giving an ETA of 5 days yesterday. This means that in 4-5 days, you’ll finally be able to run LineageOS (ex-Cyanogen Mod) 15.1 on your Switch which is based on Android 8.1.

Android for the Switch will probably let you play Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (and GTA III, LCS, VCS)! (Image Source)

According to its currently-locked XDA thread, the port is in the following stage:

• The vast majority of the Nintendo Switch hardware including the GPU, Wi-Fi, Audio, Overclocking, Joycons and others work
• Both Handheld and Docked Mode work
• TWRP comes pre-installed so you’ll have an easier time managing your Android installation and installing GApps
• A few things don’t work which include deep sleep (don’t expect awesome battery life), auto-rotation and the charging indicator (the device still charges).
• There are a few minor issues like some apps not handling joycon inputs correctly and the touchscreen sometimes detecting touches when your finger is floating over the screen

When it gets released, you’ll be able to grab it from this XDA thread and make sure you follow installation instructions! Nvidia Tegra-only games are supported so you’ll be able to play Half-Life 2, Portal and Borderlands among many other titles on your Switch 😉

Vita3K seeing some good progress with Persona 4 Golden close to showing graphics!

In contrast to the Nintendo Switch, work on emulating the PlayStation Vita started years after the console was released and this was due to numerous difficulties such as the console only getting a full native hack in 2017 with HENkaku, a staggering 5 years after its release. That being said, progress is picking up and a few games are already In-Game to varying degrees.

Vita3K is seeing some decent progress so perhaps, in a few years, a sizeable chunk of the Vita’s game library will be playable! (Video)

A few hours ago, the folks behind Vita3K had something interesting to share with us and that is the fact that Persona 4 Golden is close to showing some graphics. This was achieved through significant progress in the shader translation part of the emulator which shows that some developers are indeed interested in making the PSVita fully emultable, like the PSP, one day.

Taking a look at its Compatibility list, things are slowly getting better with figures presently being:

• 10 games are in the In-Game+ category and 1 game is In-Game- category
  • This means that you can get past the menus into the game but there are issues which render it unplayable
• 9 games get to their Intro screen
• 36 games are bootable but show nothing on screen
• 118 games are unbootable

To be immediately informed on developments relating to emulating the PSVita, you should follow Vita3K’s Twitter account. You may also donate a few bucks through their Patreon

Conclusion

As the PSVita is a long way off from being fully emulatable, the only way to enjoy PSVita games right now is by getting a PSVita console. If you go down that route, make sure it’s running FW 3.68 or below (if it’s running FW 3.69/3.70, it’ll need to have a PSP game installed on it) since Sony’s newly released FW 3.71 makes the latest version of PSVita firmware unhackable! On the other hand, if you want some game ideas, check out this article which takes a look at 3 great ones 😉