PS Vita TV is taking a 'different road' to the West from the one it took to Japan
It doesn't even have wheels
It looks like PS Vita TV - Sony's micro-console with the innards of a PS Vita and the external style of a cheap hard drive - will hit Western shores at some point in the future.
Talking to Eurogamer, Sony Computer Entertainment's Andrew House has explained that while the Japanese launch of the Vita TV has been a little underwhelming, it won't affect the Western launch.
That's all because of existing streaming services, apparently. While the likes of OnLive, Netflix, and other streaming services have a foothold in the UK and US, you see, in Japan they're very much at a "nascent stage".
"It's a very different landscape when you look at the US and Europe - much greater establishment of streaming video services, and much greater understanding of what that concept's all about," House said.
Stream for me"So we see strong market potential elsewhere in the world, but it will be a different road to market for the US and Europe than has been the case in Japan."
"Our goal is to be able to have a new form of game distribution streamed from the server side, initially to PS4 consoles then gradually moving that out to Vita," House added.
"But eventually, the end game is to have this available on a multitude of network connected devices, essentially delivering a console quality gaming experience on devices which are not innately capable of doing that."
Reading between the business lines, then, it looks like the West is very much in Sony's plans for PS Vita TV. Although the release schedule for Sony's micro-console in Western territories remains distinctly unclear.
And given some Vita games don't work on the micro-console (owing to touchscreen control issues), it could be a while before Western gamers can get their hands on Sony's new little box.
