Sony wants to sell you a PlayStation Vita handheld console for $100 … only it won’t come with a screen or buttons.
The PlayStation TV goes on sale today. You can get it without a controller or memory card for $100 or with a DualShock 3 gamepad, an 8 GB card, and The Lego Movie Videogame for $140. The quickest way to understand the PS TV is to think about it as a Vita that you need a television and a controller to play. It is essentially a modern version of Nintendo’s GameBoy Player mashed up with all the capabilities of an Amazon Fire TV. The device available to purchase today. I got my hands on a PS TV recently, and I tested out some of its key features.
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The hardware
PlayStation TV is small and attractive. It is a microconsole, but it isn’t an ugly box that sticks out in your entertainment center like the Android-powered Ouya. Instead, this device is slim and rounded on the edges. It’s smaller than most modern smartphones, and you probably won’t even notice a PS TV once you get it settled underneath your display.
In terms of height, the system is just a little taller than the ports it hosts on the back. Here are all of the PS TV’s inputs:
- Power
- Ethernet
- HDMI
- 1 USB
- PS Vita memory-card slot
- PS Vita game slot on the side
Since the PlayStation TV is a Vita on the inside, that means it doesn’t really have any internal storage. You’re going to need one of those proprietary memory cards that Sony sells for its handheld device. This will enable you to save games, download software, and more.
Of course, you don’t have to download everything. PS TV supports physical Vita games. I put the game card for MLB 14: The Show into the device and was happy to find out that games will completely disappear inside the machine. You can even put the cover on top of the slot to keep the PS TV looking neat and clean.
The interface
The PS TV’s USB input means that you can plug in a controller. You’ll need to do this when you first start the system, as it needs a USB connection to pair your DualShock. Thankfully, PS TV supports both PS3’s DualShock 3 and PS4’s DualShock 4. After you pair the gamepads, you can use either controller wirelessly.
PS TV’s Vita-ness extends to its user interface. Everything for the microconsole works just like it does on the Vita portable. I thought this would potentially introduce some problems since the Vita has a touchscreen that you can use to tap and move around menus. But Sony figured this out. Everything works with a controller. Even in a game like MLB 14: The Show, where it asks you to “swipe to start” when you first boot it up, gives you the option to just hit the “Options” button on the DS4 to skip past that.
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Once you are moving around the menus, again, everything works like a Vita. New games install as bubbles on your homescreen. You can hit the PS button to jump home at any time, and then you can jump over a few screens to start again.
It works fine.
The games
I think the reason that Sony didn’t call this new microconsole the “Vita TV” is because it has done a lot of work to get software from all generations of PlayStation devices working on it. Yes, it has a Vita card slot, and playing those portable games on a big HD screen is neat, but you can download and play PlayStation-era games from the PSN store. You can stream PlayStation 3 games using Sony’s PS Now service, which is out today for the Vita and PlayStation TV. You can even remote-play PS4 games on the Vita TV.
And just about all of those ways to play games work well (with one notable exception). Hell, I’m downloading Jumping Flash 2 right now, and I can’t wait to dig into it tonight.
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But that doesn’t mean my experience was free of problems.
PS4 remote play was unusable for me
The reason that I was considering buying a PS TV was to stream PS4 games to the television I have mounted in my bedroom. I don’t like dominating the family room with my games, so the idea of having a way to play my PS4 on my upstairs display without having to move the entire system is appealing to me.
This feature alone would make a $100 Vita TV worth it. Unfortunately, it’s not working for me.
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I want to emphasize “for me” because it could work for you depending on where your two devices are, whether they are on ethernet, and numerous other factors. But let me explain my setup, so that you can compare it to your own.
My PS4 is hooked up in my entertainment center behind my television in the main room of my house. It is connected to my router via Ethernet. My PS TV is hooked up to my TV in my bedroom, which is probably about 10 yards from the router, and we probably have about two walls between the PS TV and the router. That’s probably the big problem because I have the microconsole connected to the network over Wi-Fi.
With this setup, I can get a connection to my PS4, and I can navigate the console’s menus pretty easily. When I start a game, however, (I tested Tomb Raider and Shadow of Mordor), gameplay is choppy. I got a ton of visual artifacts. Worst of all, all of my inputs experienced a half-second delay.
The delay made every game unplayable. It was a miserable experience.
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If you have a Vita, and you can get a reliable remote-play connection in the room you want to put the PS TV in, then you’ll probably have better luck than I did.
The TV options
The PS TV has all the video streaming and downloading options of the Vita. That means you can get on-demand video from Crackle or rent movies from Sony’s own library.
But it doesn’t have Netflix yet, and it doesn’t look like it will get it. It also doesn’t have Hulu or Amazon Instant Video. That limits its appeal as a media box.
Is the PS TV worth it?
This isn’t a review. I haven’t had enough time with the Vita TV, but I can tell you that I would rather spend $100 to $140 on this than an Ouya, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, or any other set-top box.
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When it comes to inexpensive microconsoles, nothing has a better gaming selection than the PlayStation TV. It’s also fully capable of streaming movies and television shows. If you’re already invested in the Sony ecosystem, and you’re in the market for one of these small devices for a secondary TV, this is probably worth the money unless you really want Netflix or one of the other video services not on PS TV.
It’s a bummer that PS4 remote play doesn’t work for me, and it’s entirely possible it won’t for you either. That’s something to keep in mind. But compared to the other products in this category, PS TV is the most appealing to me as a gamer.