Playstation Vita and Why It’s Greatest Weapon is Still Not Being Used
Despite the fact that Sony just released the Playstation Vita in the last six months, the system is already well on its way to losing any ground its gained. Despite the dry spell that is the Vita games catalogue and Sony’s half-hearted attempts to bolster its library there is a bright spot on the horizon, if Sony realizes it in time.
When the Vita was released in 2011-2012 it was widely hailed as the most advanced portable device ever manufactured. The system brought graphical capabilities to the handheld spectrum that had never been seen before along with all the features it would require to handle any form of gameplay from tablets to its console brethren. Yet since its release the Vita has seen slow to middling sales only slightly bolstered by the release of certain titles every few months, then consequently dropping back down to its previous levels.
In this year’s financial predictions, Sony revealed their quarterly figures backing the expectations of the Vita selling at least 10 million units in the financial year 2012-2013 putting it on par with the 3DS’s sales of 12 million within the same year.
Yesterday’s E3, Sony revealed three Vita titles in development to be released this year (Assassins Creed 3 Liberation, Call of Duty Black Ops Vita and Playstation All-Stars). They also revealed a handful of PS1 classics that would soon be released onto the marketplace.
These games while welcome are hardly the Vita’s saving grace and hardly inspires consumer confidence in the Vita’s potential to succeed in this highly competitive market. So what then is the Vita’s secret weapon that could potentially save the system and make it a muti-million seller? A little used feature known as Remote Play.
Not known to most Vita users, Remote Play is a feature which was created by Sony in response to the capabilities of the WiiU’s tablet controller. It allows the Vita to connect over a private network or Wifi to a PS3 and play games on your Vita. At the moment Remote Play can only officially work with Super Stardust and Wipeout.
So how does this save the PSVita. Well when the Vita was released a group of modders were able to modify existing PS3 titles to accept Remote play from the Vita allowing them to play literally any game from the PS3 library. Not only that, the Vita is also capable of waking the PS3 from a sleeping state and connecting to remote play directly, meaning that you can theoretically run PS3 games from anywhere. As for the lack of buttons, well the Vita’s two touchscreens have that angle covered.
