Sony Unveils the PS Vita TV and Slimmer Vita Handheld 86
Dave Knott writes "Sony today announced the PS Vita TV box. Measuring 6.5cm by 10.5cm, it can play Vita games on your television, stream content via HDMI or wirelessly, and play all the existing PlayStation Network content available on the standard Vita platform. This is seen by some analysts as an attempt by Sony to compete with such devices as the Ouya and Apple TV. The PS Vita TV is so far announced for a Japan-only release in early 2014 at a price of approximately $100 US. In related news, Sony also announced a lighter, slimmer, more colorful iteration of the standard Vita handheld console."
The $100 model does not come with a controller; a $150 model was also announced that will include a Dualshock 3 and an 8G memory card.
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Is this thing still around? I thought it had gone the way of the Zune.
Hey Sony, you could sell more of these if you just hid the ads online in your customer database and waited for someone to hack you again.
Maybe you could hack it and install Ubuntu on it. (c:
Re:Vita? (Score:5, Funny)
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Took me a bit to get the pun, because you're pronouncing it wrong. It's "vee-tah".
Sony does surprisingly well (Score:3)
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multiple account support! (Score:3, Interesting)
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The last time we were peasants who paid our feudal masters for the right to toil on his lands for a pittance and own next to nothing, we had bubonic plague and didn't have cable TV. Truly, a triumph of the human spirit!
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I have read the third dimension is 15mm.
Gonna take an awful lot of these to reach the cookie jar. Perhaps they could come out with an e-reader with some nice thick books on it.
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I'm offtopic here, just wanted to say I agree with your sig.
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Since I'm complainin
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6.5cm by 10.5cm by what?
...Nothing. It only exists in 2 dimensions. They did say it was thinner, didn't they? ;-)
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Five thousand kilometers. Or, y'know, much less than the other two dimensions, from context.
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What's wrong with the OLED?
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TN LCDs can be kind of yellowish too, IPS LCDs are better but more expensive.
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They described it as best-of-class at the conference, so I'm sure it's IPS.
Japanese release, eh? (Score:3)
Especially now that 'current-gen handheld' is dangerously close to 'surprisingly endurable even on a large TV, if TV-out exists, and probably shares many components with common cellphones', the notion of shoving a cost-optimized version of one into a box along with a component video cable and calling it a console in markets too price sensitive to be good sellers for your 'serious' console might actually work pretty well. However, outside of the hardcore, it might work a little too well even among people who could afford your 'real' console; but really just want to putz around on something so why pay more?
I wonder if that will factor into Sony's regional release strategy: a screenless, battery-less, not wildly powerful Cortex-A9/SGX543 ARM SoC board isn't likely to be getting more expensive as time passes, and online sales from the back catalog are likely to be either pure profit or pure cost recovery of a game that flopped long ago; but having such a potentially-aggressively-priced option on the market might not help move newer products...
Dying handhelds (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems to be Sony's hedging of their bets that maybe handheld gaming devices are in their dying days. They get to turn the Vita into a pseudo-console/PS4 accessory and keep developers on the Vita platform in general. Maybe this is what Nintendo should be doing instead of a 2DS?
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funny psp was shitty due to its like 3 good games, overpriced memory, and a new model every freaking year with all new accessories
seems they did not learn much from psp
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This seems to be Sony's hedging of their bets that maybe handheld gaming devices are in their dying days. They get to turn the Vita into a pseudo-console/PS4 accessory and keep developers on the Vita platform in general. Maybe this is what Nintendo should be doing instead of a 2DS?
Nintendo's problem is really that the Wii U doesn't have any games. 3DS games are designed for dual screen and touch, so you can't put those on a TV, and a Wii U accessory to stream the games that don't exist for the Wii U solves nothing.
The approach they are taking is probably the best course of action: Fix the lack of games on the Wii U.
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1) In Japan there are these popular PS3 accessories called Nasne and Torne which help integrate the PS3 and the TV more allowing TV
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So THAT'S where Microsoft got their Xbox One ideas. Only a matter of time before it records, or maybe that's why the Japanese release is delayed... built in video recording...
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There's a PS3 TV device in Europe called Play TV. It is not very successful but it has a niche as a cheap way of making a PS3 into a PVR.
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And practically for free, too. They already have the hardware suppliers and game developers and software catalogue. It'd be a mistake for them not to cover the "microconsole" market when the risk is so low.
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The 2DS strategy is simply a trick to get more children to play nintendo games. It is more durable than 3DS and no 3D (if you are afraid that your children will be damaged by that)
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well they could do a supergameboy kind of accessory for wii u..
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It's a bit risky- they're not the most powerful
awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)
it's like buying a half-assed PS3 with equally half-assed games! games designed for a small screen are not going to translate well to a large screen. i'll stick to my PS3 and (soon) PS4.
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I'd say it's more like the GB Player all over again, but as you note without the massive good collection of games.
See, the former is not the issue in theory*. The latter is more the issue. If you're likely to have to buy a bunch of games anyways to enjoy the system, you might as well get a full console. The catch, of cours
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It's too bad Ouya turned out to be such a massive fail.
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You are not the target audience. Sony already has your money. The untold millions who might buy a $100 Android phone or tablet over a Vita or PS4 are the real audience.
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I don't have a PSP and wanted to play Valkyria Chronicles 2 on a real screen with a real controller. This sounds like exactly what I was looking for...except for the Japan-only part.
I already have one (Score:3)
It streams video to my TV from Sony's video delivery platform, plays Sony games on the TV, does Netflix, etc., etc., etc..
For some reason they call it a Playstation 3 though...
Now all they need.... (Score:1)
Is to convince people to BUY PS Vita and it's games. It has the worst adoption rate of ALL handheld games, Even the out of date PSP still outsells it.
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Is to convince people to BUY PS Vita and it's games. It has the worst adoption rate of ALL handheld games, Even the out of date PSP still outsells it.
Then it's a good thing that the Vita TV will also play PSP and PSOne games.
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who cares, psp already does that as well, on your tv, whats my incentive to shell out more money for 5 games that dont suck
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Only selected PSOne games. And you'll have to buy them again. Got a PSOne game on CD? Got a PSP game on UMD? Vita don't play that. Here, buy it all over again to get the download.
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True, but once you do, you can have it on multiple devices at once.
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I imagine that people who already own a lot of PSP and PSone games will just play them on their PSPs and PSones. I haven't had the latter since the early '00s and never owned the former so they're actually a big part of the Vita's appeal.
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REally? where do I insert the disc?
Oh wait, you cant.
Shoot it in the face. (Score:1)
Lack of touchscreen is not a problem. (Score:3)
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Just like pirates to use some "l33t" format like .mkv when living room media devices don't support it. Use MPEG4 containers.
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MKV is obviously not the best container format if it doesn't work in commonly available consumer devices.
Or do you think that people who use FLAC and Ogg Vorbis are "1337" poseurs too?
For the most part, yes, I do consider them poseurs. Just like the college educated hipsters wearing 50's bowling shirts and drinking PBR.
Theres the winning strategy (Score:2)
That made so many people just shit rainbows with their psp! Wasteland of shovelware, half the features are broke or useless and what does Sony do? release a slim model, that doesnt work with any of the shit you already have.
Good job guys, thats how you dominate the handheld market, not that pussy shit like Nintendo did ... backwards compatibility for damn near 30 years and a great library of games, no sir! its fucking usb cables and controller sales!
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what does Sony do? release a slim model, that doesnt work with any of the shit you already have.
But if you already have a PSP, why would you need a new one?
And although Nintendo's portable platforms did have some backwards compatibility later versions of some of the handhelds reduce it. The GBA Micro doesn't play GB or GBC games for example. There's also no GBA slot on newer DS's.
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As a man with a broken PS2, the main thing holding me back from buying one of the cheap new
A lot of people are missing the best feature (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of people are harping on about how lame this is without noticing the most important feature of this device.
This device can do anything a Vita can do, *INCLUDING PS4 REMOTE PLAY*. IE, with this device you can play your PS4 on your bedroom TV while the PS4 is in the basement. This is a huge feature because it basically makes you able to extend your PS4 to any room in the house for $100.
Furthermore, this works over the internet, just like the Vita. So you can bring this tiny little box on trips and hook it up to the hotel TV to play your PS4 games on the road.
It is a HUGE product. I think Sony is not marketing it properly because no one is understanding all the features.
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This could be really cool if it could 'split screen' multiplayer FPS across televisions. This would be like having to PS4s.
Never succeed (Score:1)
Seriously, Vita should have been huge (Score:2)
While many people won't admit it, most people usually enjoy fingering something in the back to give them enjoyment.