It’s a question that’s been posed many times by owners of PlayStation Vita: where are all the AAA games? Well, rather disappointingly, Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Director, Product Planning & Platform Software Innovation, Don Mesa, has answered that dilemma directly to a Vita owner via the PlayStation blog.
In an article announcing the arrival of the new lighter, slimmer Vita model, Mesa used the comments section to respond to a fan who wrote:
“We were also promised console-quality games for Vita. Killzone and Uncharted have been the only decent “console-quality” games (in my opinion) so far. Uncharted wasn’t even that good. We need a few good AAA games that are actually developed by the proper studios, and not farmed out to smaller devs who can’t quite capture what makes a series work on consoles.”
Mesa responded by suggesting that most of Vita’s AAA experiences will arrive via PS4 Remote Play and the PlayStation Now (PS Now) service, which launches later this year and allows gamers to stream a back-catalogue of PlayStation titles on a variety of devices.
Stream PS4 games smootly to Vita with Remote Play
“The economics simply don’t work with the traditional process,” writes Mesa. “We have to do something different to get AAA games on Vita. We accomplished it to a certain degree by making PS4 games work on Vita via remote play. PS Now will be another way, streaming PS3 games on Vita. I can’t wait until PS Now is out on Vita – I hope you’ll try out the experience and let me know what you think.”
Via Remote Play, PS4 owners can stream and play games directly from their console on Vita’s small screen, providing they have reliable Internet access. This allows users to play all the major PS4 games on their handheld, including Call of Duty: Ghosts and Killzone Shadow Fall. PS Now is currently in the closed beta phase, but when it launches, users will be able to play major PlayStation titles from past generations on a variety of platforms, including Bravia TVs and Vita.
PlayStation Now due to launch later this year
So, it looks like Vita owners can probably expect a deluge of indie titles and JRPGs, rather than any major exclusives in the future. Indeed, it’s no secret that Sony has been working hard on relations with indie developers to bring their games to PlayStation platforms. Earlier this month, SCEA announced 12 new indie games for PS3, Vita and PS4, and it’s expected that more indie titles will be revealed at E3 2014 in June.
Vita launched in 2011 with what Sony described as “biggest and best lineup we’ve ever launched across the history of PlayStation platforms.” Nevertheless, aside from Uncharted: Golden Abyss, the lack of support from major studios was apparent early on. Due to lukewarm sales of Vita over the past three years, it sounds like Sony has all but given up on Vita exclusive AAA titles and is looking for the power of Remote Play and PS Now to appease those fans who made the wrong assumption that Vita would host many exclusive major titles.