Sony are only planning to release the brilliant PlayStation Vita TV system in the East right now, in order to tackle Japan’s video streaming market, which is quite barren right now. After it releases in Japan on November 14th, it’ll make its way to South Korea, China etc. but won’t be heading to the US and Europe – at least not at this point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ata90Y92UeI
This is terrible news; just the other day I wrote about how just great the system would be as a companion to the PS4, and was planning to pre-order as soon as they announced a UK release date.
The news comes from a press round table interview hosted by Andrew House, as reported by TechOn. There are some new details too, including that it may use cloud computing (Gaikai?) to stream PS3 games to the system. House also considers it as a rival to Chromecast and Apple TV, rather than other games consoles such as OUYA.
All my hopes and dreams of not having to carry a big black box across the country every few weeks have been shattered.
UPDATE:Â Shuhei Yoshida, responsive as ever, has taken to twitter and revealed that all they’re saying on the matter is that it is “releasing first in Japan” so it seems it’ll eventually make its way over here.
@compccs @thesixthaxis we are just saying “PS Vita TV releasing first in Japan” :)
— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) September 12, 2013
hannes_truce
I can’t see how this makes business (or any) sense.
ron_mcphatty
Seeing as it’ll be so cheap it might take sales away from the PS4 here, most of us probably won’t be splashing out too much right now, and giving Japan something new this year to make up for the PS4 delay is also great PR in a country with so many fans. I get the feeling the Vita and PSP are both still hugely more popular over there than in the west so it’ll sell better there than here as a lone console. I think it’s mostly a calculated PR move.
3shirts
Hmm, I wonder if this is a infrastructure issue. Perhaps they aren’t confident in delivering a good enough service on the broadband capacity we have here.
DJ Judas
This is the first time Sony have fumbled in a while. Quite a shame that there’s no plans for us folk yet, however, given the overwhelmingly positive response it’s seen I imagine it’s only a matter of time.
bunimomike
I’m not even sure it’s a fumble! So much hardware is rolled out in stages (look at the PS4 and the Xbox One). Not for one second did I think they wouldn’t bring this over to the West. People’s knickers are in a twist over nothing. Patience, folks. Patience.
gaffers101
That’s a real shame. Hopefully they’ll see the error of their ways in the new year.
Gamoc
But…I want one right now…
I agree with DJ Judas, it’s only a matter of time considering the reaction to the announcement.
Jambo
I think the key term here is right now.
They are focusing very much on PS4 here and with PS4 coming out in February in Japan they need something for there too.
I imagine VitaTV will come to these shores sometime in the new year.
2ofclubs
Like you said I reckon it’s all just a case of timing. No need to panic until they say it’s NOT going to come out in Western territories ever. After all why not whet people’s appetite with the PS4 in November then a few months after go ‘you do realise you can stream this to another room using this little box’.
We’ll get it eventually. Maybe in Feb when Japan get the PS4. That way US and EU factories will have got over the initial PS4 demand and be able to deal with making Vita TV instead.
jimmy-google
I thought this was announced at the time they announced it. I certainly read it around the web enough.
It seems like an experiment. If it works then I’m sure we’ll see it but I’m not sure releasing it at the same time as a new console is the best business idea. A re-announcement at E3 would probably work well. We’ll probably see Western releases of the new Vita as well.
Kennykazey
It’ll make it to the west, I recon we can expect an announcement within the end of next year. They probably want to see how it sells in Asia first, and China should help jumpstart Vita adoption with this.
Kovacs
There is nothing new here. The response to EG after the Japanese show was “Not at this point.” Same words are quoted in the sourced article.
It will come at some point in 2014. No reason for it not to. Especially considering the public’s response.
colmshan1990
It’s a shame, although I have to say my enthusiasm for it has been dampened by the list of games compatible with it.
It’s limited, to say the least. http://smokeslair.com/ps-vita-tv-supported-games-list/
I still expect it to come out here eventually though.
2ofclubs
Maybe this delay, I hope, is a good thing then. That way when it does get a Western release the new list will be a lot lot bigger. Doesn’t mean that list would be the same over here anyway.
colmshan1990
Anything with a Vita-specific feature (touch, motion, camera, etc.) seems to be missing out.
That’s quite a lot of games.
Uncharted is certainly out. Killzone too I’d imagine. Gravity Rush another that would struggle. Tearway another big game impossible with a DS3 or DS4. Escape Plan, Little Big Planet, Modnation Racers, Virtue’s Last Reward, the list goes on…
2ofclubs
I know they mentioned about a pointer being an option for touchscreen but still that wouldn’t solve the issue completely.
I wonder whether they’ll continue to keep them incompatible for Vita TV or go for a patch to make button prompts on equivalents. Perhaps they could utilise the extra DualShock buttons to compensate. Like a press and hold R2 to do the Uncharted rubbing.
It would certainly suck for someone to buy and game and find out it’s not Vita TV compatible.