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
blast71
Pay a bit more and import one if you desperately need it, otherwise, patience is a virtue. I’m betting it’ll be released everywhere else as soon as they realise they’ll sell like hot-cakes, money talks.
Bilbo_bobbins
even without the streaming of stuff, this would be amazing. What a massive shame. This was on my list.
blarty
Sony’s home market is having to wait longer than EU and NA, so this acts as a little sweetener and hopefully will bolster the Vita in a market that is completely mad for handheld games, and being able to take those games from your Vita, plug your game and save cards in and carry on from where you left off on your own TV will be appreciated.
I think this will be released to the West when Gaikai is ready for NA, presuming it’s enough of a success in Japan.
Also it makes that, compatible games list seem to have more sense now, as things like Uncharted GA are very westernised titles.
blarty
Shuhei Yoshida is brilliant in keeping in touch with fans, as is Adam Boyes – MS pr could really do with taking a leaf out of their books…..
yd
Interesting that he mentions it as a rival to Chromecast. Chromecast appears to be built on the Dial protocol Netflix created, which a lot of companies seem interested in. There are names registered for everything from YouTube to iPlayer and loads of obscure services I’ve never heard of. And porn, inevitably. And TV manufacturers.
Sony also appear to have grabbed their domain for it.
What are the chances of Sony building such technology into this Vita TV? And the PS4? I quite like the idea of finding stuff to watch on Netflix on my phone and just hitting a button to watch it on TV. Which kind of works with the PS3 version of Netflix, but you have to launch the app first.
It may be too early for that yet. It could stumble with different apps not necessarily working with particular second screen devices. But with any luck, it might just happen. Looks like it’s at least a fairly simple standard to support though, which should help. And Google have got in there early and shown it kind of works and people seem interested. (I’m guessing the actual Chromecast dongle isn’t intended as a long term solution though)
cam_manutd
That Yoshida..good thing I came to this post when it updated :)
CR8ZYH0RSE
If pre-orders are anything to go by then it’s doing well in Japan.Both standard and value bundles of the PS Vita tv are out of stock on Amazon Japan.
TSBonyman
I just assumed it would be Japan-exclusive for a time and then be released here eventually too. I’m sure plenty people will import one if it’s possible.