Sony’s Second Screen Strategy In Action at Gamescom

Sony’s stage show continues with a DLC pack being shown for LittleBigPlanet 2. It’s a pack which allows you to use the Vita, along with its second screen and touch controls, to control Sackboy on your PlayStation 3.

Elements of the gameplay used the rear and front touch panels to control elements of the scenery like platforms and bounce blocks. It’s much as we’ve seen in footage from the Vita’s LBP gameplay before but used in interesting ways alongside your big screen. Use the vita to scan the scene on TV and pick out clues to puzzles. Jump Sackboy down a chute and onto the Vita screen to complete areas as needed. The possibilities are tantalising and it all looked very exciting indeed.

With Nintendo’s Wii U bringing its tablet controller and Microsoft pushing the Smartglass initiative, Sony had to answer with what we all knew they had in reserve and this demonstration has done that conclusively. The message is clear: Vita can be PlayStation 3’s second screen and it works beautifully.

10 Comments

  1. Really good use of the vita. Was it just me or was there almost zero lag from Vita to PS3?

    • looked pretty spectacular to me, no noticeable lag. I hope the charging cable was just plugged in for power though, if it needs to be wired to work, I’ll have to stand next to my PS3 to play!

  2. We all knew that Sony had the potential to do this, but to now finally see it in action is fantastic. I am now sooooo tempted to buy the LBP Vita bundle if this is the kind of interaction we can expect in future.

  3. While it looks and no doubt, will perform extremely well, I’m not paying £200 for the experience.

  4. I was skeptical but this looked impressive!

  5. Glad more games are doing it. As it was pretty good in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.

  6. I have p**sed on the notion of dual screen gaming before… i have to admit some of that was kinda cool though.. :/

  7. Vita Time!

  8. I’d rather be able to play PS3 games via Remote Play on my Vita. Sony’s Problem is the lack of a strong install base of the Vita. Let’s see how many developers jump on this. I can see it being an even smaller niche than the Move. Nintendo has it bundled with every console so you will see lots of uses for it and Microsoft is hoping that Windows 8 tablets sell like hot cakes.

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