I’d just like to make one thing clear, this isn’t a PS Vita “doom and gloom” piece. It’s just a quick look at why developers should bother investing in making original game, or even ports for the PS Vita.
I love the PS Vita, it’s a great console and fills a gap that tablets and smartphones just can’t. It provides great gameplay, great controls and for the most part great graphics. It’s getting cheaper too, with the price cut in Japan sales have rocketed and the console is picking up popularity over here in the West too, but is it appealing to developers?
The PlayStation 4 was announced a few weeks ago, and ever since we’ve all been lapping up any details we can, debating on whether RAM is important and what Microsoft will have with their next Xbox. One thing really stuck out for me though, and to be honest, I’m a little surprised it hasn’t been picked up on by the masses that trawl the internet.
The PlayStation 4 and the PS Vita are set to be the ultimate duo in gaming, allowing you to stream your PlayStation 4 games to your nifty handheld, taking away the need for the television and allowing you to sit quietly in a corner with a pair of headphones and ignore the world as you play through top games, all on your PS Vita. That’s not all, there’s also Gaikai to think about. Sony purchased the online gaming firm months back for around $380 million, if I remember correctly. Gaikai has been tipped to be the future of the PlayStation brand, allowing you to stream your favourite titles, whether they are PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4 games straight onto your PS Vita and PlayStation 4.
It does beg the quest: why should developers bother making PS Vita games? If the capability is there to allow instant streaming to the device, why bother making a not so great port when customers can just get the premium version that is made for the top-tier console and play it on their PS Vita? Why waste money and resources on creating a PS Vita version when you can just produce one game and have it on both consoles? It’s not a definite thing at this moment in time, we still don’t know how the PlayStation 4 streaming to the PS Vita will work out of the gate when Sony’s latest home console releases later this year, but it’s worth thinking about in the meantime. It’s not to say that developers just won’t bother with the Vita, but if you could provide the best experience for the least amount of cash, wouldn’t you?
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What do you reckon? Will streaming eventually replace regular PS Vita games, or do you think our little carts are safe for now? Let us know in the comments below.