That PS Vita TV sure is a neat little device, huh? The device is hitting Japan this November and will be released elsewhere in Asia next January. But what about the West?
In a recent roundtable Kotaku attended at Sony’s Tokyo headquarters, Masayasu Ito said, “Western gamers want [the PS Vita TV] more than we thought.”
Ito added that Sony was thinking about launching the PS Vita TV in the West, but Sony needed to first determine the best timing to release something like this. Ito noted that they might need to add new elements to the Vita TV. “For example,” Ito continued, stressing he was speaking hypothetically, “cloud gaming.”
But if Sony does decide to release the VitaTV in the West, it needs to figure out the best approach, whether that’s adding new features or launching as is. “We have to decide all of this before launching,” Ito said.
Comments
16 responses to “Westerners Want PS Vita TV More Than Sony Thought”
I’ll buy it as-is. It currently does what I want.
Of course they do, multiple TV’s through a house is pretty common in western countries. Having your main console in the lounge/living room and a Vita TV on your supplementary TV’s would be perfect, especially if they make another PlayTV accessory and you can share your recordings across devices.
I’ve actually been wondering what they’ll do about PlayTV. I mean there’s no reason why the existing device couldn’t work with PS4 – they’d just need to make a version of the software for PS4 available through the store. But as far as I know they haven’t mentioned anything about it.
Oh well, I bought mine just as a temporary stopgap until I got around to buying a dedicated PVR. Probably about time I pulled my finger out and got around to that anyway 😛
To be honest although PlayTV is currently my PVR, they have done a pretty horrible job of supporting it and optimising it. Hopefully if there is a PlayTV 2 they don’t just release and forget again.
At the very least I’d like a new one to have a antenna output so I can watch TV without having to do it through the PS3. At the moment I’ve just got a splitter to enable me to do that, but it results in weaker signal strength.
But to be honest, dedicated PVR’s are probably cheap enough now that I’d probably be more inclined to just buy one of those rather than another PlayTV unless it was really good and really cheap.
My TV is a little old, so while it is HD it doesn’t have a digital receiver built in. PlayTV has been the only way I have to watch TV over the past few years, so I also hope they come out with a new version of the software for PS4.
That being said, I don’t think the PS3 handles the constant writing and deleting of large files very well. I have to run the maintenance stuff pretty regularly, and delete all Play TV data and start fresh at least a couple of times a year, and still the system seems to be dying.
I think that no matter what, it’s probably time to find a better, dedicated solution.
Anything I record that I don’t want to just watch and delete immediately I tend to export out to the XMB. That at least makes it quicker and easier to get at them, and if the files aren’t too big then you can copy them off to an external HDD, so it stops the PS3 filling up too much. Obviously the external HDD is stuck with the FAT32 file size limit (2Gb, I think?) so moving to an external drive doesn’t work with longer recordings.
But the option to export is disabled for Aus region settings, and I can’t be bothered re-scanning the channels every time.
I have googled and read like 5 articles and I still don’t know what exactly this stupid thing is.
All I have gathered is that it’s a gimped vita that can’t play 90% of vita games (everything that has any touched based stuff), somehow lets you play in another room. This makes no sense because the device needs to be plugged into the tv, if its plugged into the tv in 1 room how are you playing in another?
On top of this you still have to buy over priced memory cards and a controller.
I really do not understand WTF the device is or the point of its existence and have realised this thing will be a far worse than the Wii U confusion.
I believe you’re operating under bad or incorrect information.
Also, this sold out within an hour of the announcement.
Here is the main reason for it’s existence, Persona 4 Golden on a big screen!
You need better Googling skills.
The playing in another room, is allowing you to stream PS4 games from your PS4, to another TV in the house, using RemotePlay.
It works with most Vita games. But key early titles do require the touch screen, and are omitted. This may be alleviated by DualShock4 support that will be added(presumably around PS4 launch in Japan)
The device comes with 1GB built in memory.
Yes, you need a controller, if you don’t already own a PS3.
Here it is in a nutshell:
1, You have multiple tvs in your house and one PS4. Someone wants to watch tv in your living room. You go to the other room that has the vita tv and you can stream the ps4 to this device.
This is great for households with multiple tvs and just one PS4.
2, It plays Vita games. This also means it plays PSP games and PSOne games that are on PSN.
3, Streams Hulu, Netflix etc.
Now you know what this stupid thing is.
It seems the biggest draw is streaming PS4 games in another room.
Personally Id just use my Vita but a lot of people really serm to dig bigger screens.
Not for me, but then either are so many other products. I just wont buy them.
Oh so you have your ps4 or what have you running in say the living room and then connect this to the bedroom tv and it will stream the ps4 content to the bedroom?
Wouldn’t that just have massive latency issues and if that was an issue for people (them not being able to use main tv) wouldn’t they just set up the console in the bedroom to begin with?
Maybe if i was one of those people i’d understand but it seems i do not.
You’re going to LOVE SteamOS.
I couldn’t care less for it, it’s not a pc, because it wont do pc things, but its not a console either.
So it has the worst from both sides and will (unless they show otherwise) be insanely limited in which games it does offer without some form of streaming untill it gets a large enough market share.
Its basically a more expensive ouya with real games. But the problem is its competing with both consoles and Pc’s. They are going to need some serious investment $$ and be ready to be in the red for years, assuming there is a large enough market wanting it to be worthwhile. (I’ve all but abandoned pc so i really wouldn’t know)
It’s a lazy convenience thing, people don’t like to move stuff.
Personally, I’ve already made use of renote play on my Vita with Ico. Very little latency apparently PS4, having been designed this way, is better.
As a husband & father, it’s great for me to be able to knock over a PS3 game while my son or Mrs watches TV, since I only own one TV & have no intentions to buy a second.
Actually the PS Vita is quite impressive as far as what is offers. At this point it plays over 100 Vita games and over 600 PSN, PSP, and PS1 games and you can remote play your PS4. You can also use it for watching movies or TV. This device is great for people who want to play Vita games but dont need the portability. And also the PS4 remote play is great for somebody like me who travels a lot for work and allows you to play your PS4 in your hotel room.
A cheaper way to play PS Vita games (I believe they’ve spoken about possibly using the PS4 controllers touch pad for touch based games). A convenient way to be able to stream PS4 games to other televisions in your house.
What’s stupid about it? It seems like a great idea. A cheap way to allow me to play my PS Vita and PS4 games on a different TV in my house. And smaller than a console, so easier to move to other rooms (inexpensive enough to allow me to buy multiple if I get too lazy).
Seems like they’re trying to hold out on a Western launch until Gaikai goes live. That would make the most sense so far as selling their streaming platform goes.
How awesome would this be if it was combined with the no cd required to play the game feature that Xbox one was originally going to have