They could at least add Vita compatibility and it’ll instantly has hundreds of games available. A shame since Vita itself can play PSP and PS1 titles.
Adding “vita compatibility” would require including a psvita inside it. As well as extra inputs on the back. All for games people didn’t actually ever want. You can however play (some) ps1 and psp games on the thing via the ps5
Hardware-wise, vita is nothing special. It’s just an arm cortex device, which means Sony will have much easier time making the runtime works on newer arm processor. They don’t even need to port the whole os, just the runtime would be enough. If a bunch of volunteer can make vita runtime from scratch on their own free time (and managed to get various Android games running on vita runtime too), there is no reason Sony which have access to the source code can’t do it with less time.
No need for extra touchpad in the rear either. Vita TV didn’t have it and work fine without it too.
it’s not a “nothing special” device, it literally has a psp encoded into the soc package…
also
Vita TV didn’t have it and work fine without it too.
this is just flat out incorrect, a huge amount of games just don’t work on the vita tv because of the lack of touch interactions