Sony: Wii U Will Inspire PlayStation Vita Developers To Experiment

Despite the ambiguity of the announcement, we definitely think there's something intriguing about the Wii U, but we're going to wait for more details before we offer any opinion on the system. What's interesting to us is how Nintendo and Sony's direction is converging. Both companies are going about things in their own ways, but there's a clear parity in their directions: blurring the lines between the handheld and home console experience.

Speaking about Nintendo's new platform with Develop, SCE's head of Worldwide Studios said that he believes the Wii U will inspire developers to carry out experiments with the PlayStation Vita.

“It is very interesting the ways that Nintendo went with Wii U, and I was surprised it wasn’t exactly as it had been rumoured,” Yoshida told Develop at E3.

“Already people are starting to ask about linking Vita and PS3 to do something similar, in terms of using two screens, and having controls on the screen.

“That’s very interesting, and we will have to experiment.

“Lots of the things that developers of Vita games are doing, as you may have seen, is experimenting with connectivities between Vita and PS3.

"The Wipeout [2048] team came up with their cross play ideas, and the other Vita teams have come up with ways of playing with two systems.

“It’s just a matter of time, as we provide the SDKs to developers so they can make use of both PS3 and Vita, and they might come up with something interesting.”

Now before the Nintendo fans drop by to spout their "innovation" comments, we would just like to point out that Sony's been streaming PlayStation 3 games to the PSP for years. Latency will be Sony's big stumbling block if it intends to recreate the functionality of Wii U between PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. But honestly, we're still not convinced having a second screen on the controller is of any real gameplay benefit. We suppose that's for another discussion.