You’re mixing up emulation with native ports. Nobody is saying the Vita could perfectly emulate PS2 hardware through full software emulation that’s a completely different thing. The PS2’s eDRAM bandwidth was indeed extremely high for particle effects and fillrate-heavy rendering, but that doesn’t mean the Vita couldn’t handle PS2-level games or even better visuals through native development and optimization.

The Vita wasn’t designed to emulate the PS2 architecture directly; it was built with a far more modern GPU and architecture. That’s why games made specifically for the Vita like Killzone, Uncharted, Resistance, and Gravity Rush looked far beyond typical PS2 visuals. The Vita already proved it could render scenes and effects far more advanced than most PS2 games.

Also, PS2 emulation struggling on PS3 doesn’t prove the Vita was weak. The PS3 had issues with PS2 compatibility mainly because the architectures were completely different and Sony removed actual PS2 hardware from later PS3 models. Emulation difficulty ≠ lack of hardware power. So yes, full PS2 emulation on Vita would’ve been difficult, but saying the Vita couldn’t handle PS2-level games at acceptable performance is completely wrong when the system already ran games visually generations ahead of PS2.

People Confuse Emulation With Hardware Power