Where Are They Now? Playstation TV
In this series I want to look at failed products with an emphasis on gaming. Products that were hyped at launch but are now forgotten by the public and the companies that made them. I will be looking at what went wrong and if the product deserved this ill fate. First in the series will be the Playstation TV
The origins
The Playstation TV (aka PlayStation Vita TV or PS Vita TV) was released in 2013 in Japan and in 2014 in the rest of the world. It is a micro-console and can be used to play Playstation Vita games on your TV/Monitor. You can download the compatible games directly from the Playstation store or use the physical PS Vita cartridges.
Sony took the inside of the Playstation Vita and put it in a setup box, the idea was brilliant, this way you could have the best of a under-performing gaming device and expand it with video services (Like a Roku only you could also control it with you dual-shock controllers).
Even better was the option to stream games from your Playstation to the Playstation TV.
So what happened?
The Playstation TV sounds great on paper, but in reality things didn't work out all that well. It seems like Sony didn't really believe in the product either. Here are some of the highlights that led to the Playstations early demise
- The games
Playing PS Vita games on your TV sounds great, however not all games were playable. Some games on the Vita used specific controls that weren't available on the Playstation TV
- The Menu
The menu was a mess, It was evident that Sony did not invest any time in redesigning the menu to suit the Playstation TV. The port was lazy and felt awkward on the Playstation TV. The Vita's menu was designed for touch screen while the Playstation TV was used with a controller.
- The Streaming
One of the major selling points was the option to stream PS4 games to your Playstation TV. However there is one thing no gamer likes when gaming and that is LAG and with the Playstation TV there was a noticeable amount of lag. As a Playstation TV owner and also having played with Steam's in-home streaming I can without a doubt say that the lag was not caused by my home network but by something that was wrong with the Playstation TV.
-The price
The price for the unit itself was not the issue. You could buy the Playstation TV for $100 or €100 (depending where you live) but the problem was with the proprietary memory cards you had to buy for storage. These would set you back for around $30 for just a 8 GB memory card.
In February 2016 Sony announced that they were pulling the plug on the Playstation TV
The Verdict
In my opinion the Playstation TV did not deserve this fate. It felt like Sony tried their best to make sure that the device did not succeed. The execution of all those features that sounded so good on paper were handled in the worst possible way. If only Sony had put more effort in making the Playstation TV as good as their other products it might have been more of a success and then they would have been able to add even more features to the box.
Well, at least you can turn your Playstation TV back to a handheld using the DekaVita 7.
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