The consumer electronics giant does not want ports of console games making their way to the Vita as it looks to avoid the mistakes it made with the PlayStation Portable.
The PlayStation Portable was Sony’s first venture into the portable gaming market and the console did rather well for itself, especially in Japan, where it is selling a considerable number of units for its age.
However, there were a number of issues with the console including it being hacked and exposed to piracy, as well as the large number of console ports that made their way on to the game.
The latter was an issue that Sony believes resulted in the console losing its identity as the PSP was inundated with ports of PlayStation 2 titles.
John Koller, the vice president of marketing for Sony, explained, “The issue that happened with PSP is we got overrun with ports.” He continued, “It become very difficult for us to define what made PSP unique.”
The phenomenon also resulted in Sony not being able to come up with a cohesive strategy with developers to provide a unique experience on the console.
“The content development became a bit unstructured or decentralized, in that we got a lot of content that was on PlayStation 2 and got thrown over to the handheld.”
According to Koller, the Vita isn’t just about having a portable add-on for the PlayStation 3 but to deliver a unique experience that can differentiate the Vita from other consoles on the market, including its cousin.
He explained how the Vita wasn’t supposed to be “something consumers play because they’ve left the living room. It’s something that (needs to be) unique, and defines the Vita experience.”
Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Resistance: Burning Skies are examples of unique experiences however; Mortal Kombat and WipEout 2048 are more ports than original titles. The likes of Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation, Black Ops: Declassified and Killzone: Mercenary are set to buck that trend and give gamers more of a pure Vita experience.
Yet, many agree that Tearaway, which is being developed by Media Molecule, could be the game that truly defines the Vita as a console. The new IP from the studio that brought the charming LittleBigPlanet series to the world is set to continue a similar trend on the Vita and if it manages to emulate its cousin, the console may very well have a killer app.
In the meantime, gamers have a short but sweet line-up of PlayStation Vita titles to make do with as well as a plethora of PlayStation One classics, including Syphon Filter and Resident Evil, which Sony has released on the console in order to add more value as well as content for the console.
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