PS4 Remote Play with Vita

Sony has a track record of announcing impressive features that never get used to their full potential. Remote Play is one such idea that, despite showing some promise, fell to the wayside on the PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation 3. However, the company’s eager to avoid the same issues with the PlayStation Vita and the PlayStation 4, as Digital Foundry reports that the manufacturer is aiming to mandate off-screen play for virtually every title released on its next generation platform.

The article – citing a proven developer – claims that any PS4 titles not taking advantage of the new PlayStation Eye will be required to include Remote Play support. This, according to the report, will be much improved compared to the compatibility integrated into the PSP and the PS3, as Sony has designed the console with the feature in mind.

“Remote Play works by downscaling the 1080p frame buffer to the Vita's native 960x544 resolution, using the PS4's in-built hardware h.264 video encoder to compress the image,” the article reads. “This is then beamed out over Wi-Fi to the Vita, which decodes the video and sends back controller inputs to the PS4.”

While this occupied precious resources on the PS3, there’ll be no performance penalty on the PS4. As such, assuming that this is a relatively simple thing for studios to implement, we reckon that it makes a lot of sense for Sony to mandate the feature. Hopefully it increases the appeal of the handheld, too.

Update: Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has now confirmed the report on Twitter.

[source eurogamer.net]