Today, Sony pressed whichever magical button says “release to Vita” and allowed PS Now to stream PS3 games to the portable console, the PS Vita.
We’ve already spoken about how the service is a great idea but that it also has a long way to go before it becomes a viable alternative to backwards compatibility, but we’ve not yet been able to try out the service on the PS Vita due to the fact it’s only available in North America – for now, at least.
However, many PS Now users have taken to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and bus shelters to discuss how awful the experience is on the PS Vita. To be fair, it is still in early days, but we can see why some people are getting frustrated – they’re paying good money to use the service, after all.
That being said, you would expect some of the most basic function to, er, function. Users are reporting that while streaming does work quite well, it can take an age to even get into a game. Players have to navigate menus to find the games they want to play, but with the current setup of the store many are finding themselves unable to browse the games without being thrown back to the PS Vita home screen. Those who don’t encounter crashing errors are reporting that even when they are able to browse the store, they can only see a small selection of the games available as the rest fail to load.
For players who are actually able to get into a game and use the service as intended, more problems present themselves with games not showing ‘start’ buttons, effectively rendering some titles unplayable if they require the player to press the ‘start’ button to get the game going. It’s not all bad though. Some have found success in restarting the PS Now app until the game works properly, but for the time being it’s very much trial and error.
It’s not a great start for PS Now on the PS Vita, but hopefully Sony will iron out the problems shortly. In the mean time we recommend not signing up for the 7-day free trial until the problems have been resolved.
Have you been able to try out PS Now on the PS Vita? Has it been smooth sailing or a pain in the arse? Head on down to the comments section below and let us know.