A PlayStation TV review

While it may not be perfect, the PlayStation TV is something that could cater to a wide ranging audience -- if they have adequate bandwidth, that is.

Originally named PS Vita TV in Japan and other Asian territories, it’s a small device that connects to your television via an HDMI cable and where you interact with it via a DualShock controller. Actually, “small” doesn’t do a good job of describing it. This sucker is tiny! Check out how small it is when next to a DualShock 3 controller. I originally took a picture of it in my hand to show just how “fun size” it is, but I don’t have the smooth, creamy hands of George Costanza to hand model, so I placed it next to the controller instead.

It is essentially a Vita minus the touch pads, camera, mic, battery, gyroscope, accelerometer, and display. It launched in 2013 for the Asian markets, but nothing was mentioned for anywhere else. And after figuring it would never be released for the North American region, Sony announced at E3 2014 that it would be coming to America. October 2014 is when it was released in North America as PlayStation TV.

Originally priced at $99.00 for the stand-alone version and $150.00 for the bundled version, it was given lukewarm reviews and a lot of criticism. And rightfully so as it’s missing some core components that would otherwise make this an incredible product and one that could give other set-top boxes like Roku a run for its money; but more on that later.

Due to the criticism, the device hasn’t sold very well and the price has fallen substantially. Currently the bundled version sells for $99.00, but I was able to get via a fire sale for $70.00. That’s less than half the price it was when it launched just six months ago! The bundled version includes: the PSTV, power cables, HDMI cable, DualShock 3 controller, USB cable, 8GB memory card, and a code to download The LEGO Movie Videogame. The device itself includes the following ports: power, Ethernet, HDMI, USB, memory card slot, and a card slot for Vita games. The memory cards are the same ones you can use for the Vita. The PSTV also includes 1GB of internal memory, but will not be used it (nor can it be accessed) if a memory card is plugged in.

When you turn it on, it’s basically just like setting up a Vita. The interface is also like the Vita where all the games, apps, and such are shown as bubbles. But instead of navigating with a touchscreen, you’ll be using the d-pad on the DualShock controller. If you have a Vita, you’ll appreciate how lovely the main screen looks when displayed on a large HDTV. The bubble icons are deliciously humongous!

The PlayStation Store, as you’d expect, is the same one as the Vita, so its interface is the same, too. This is great because you can download and play from a huge library of Vita and PSP games. But there are some negative aspects to note. For one, when it comes to Vita games, not all games listed in the store can be played on the PlayStation TV. As an example, Tearaway cannot be played because it requires the use of the camera. I was able to play with my physical copy of Lumines Electronic Symphony, but it did require some workarounds to achieve this.

To include some compatibility for games that use either the front or read touch pads, you can jump to the Vita’s PS menu and select an option titled “Use Touch Pointer in Games.” If this is checked, then whenever you press the L3 or the R3 buttons on the controller, a hand icon in a pointing gesture will appear that you can then move around the screen with the left stick or right stick. Pressing L3 will have the hand focused on the front touch pad while pressing R3 for the rear touch pad. So when it came to playing Lumines Electronic Symphony, the difficulty for me came from powering up and then activating the special attacks. I would have to juggle between the rear pad to power up the special meter, the front touch pad to activate it, and then turn off the pointers to rotate and position the falling blocks before they landed. Even though this was tricky, I was able to complete the Voyage mode. It’s also worth noting how awesome it was to be playing LES on a big screen. There were some pixel artifacts shown on the screen due to the image being stretched on a large display, but not bad enough to distract you or for it to be a show stopper for the device.

Pixel artifacts were more noticeable with PSP games. I played the story mode for Neo Geo Heroes: Ultimate Shooting, and while it wasn’t distracting, it is obvious enough to see that the resolution between PSP games and an HDTV were greater than Vita games. It was pretty great playing with the DualShock controller. Maneuvering with the sticks on the DualShock felt more accurate than the nub stick on the PSP. I also didn’t notice any controller latency when playing either Vita or PSP games.

PS1 games can be purchased as well. I tried out Twisted Metal 2 and it’s just as good as it would ever be. For a PS1 game that came out in 1996, it scales well to the big screen, controls great, and was a fun game to mess round with for testing out the PSTV.

But if you’re someone who wants a bit more graphical oomph, then you’ll need to delve into PlayStation Now, which is Sony’s cloud gaming rental service. With this service, you are able to rent PlayStation 3 games from a selection of rental periods from as low as 4 hours to as high as 90 days. PSTV was one of the PlayStation devices selected for the beta so it’s great to know this tiny box can also play PS3 games. For testing PlayStation Now, my PSTV was connected to the internet via Ethernet with a 30mbps connection speed.

One of the games I rented was Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate. Being skeptical, I wasn’t expecting this game to perform well as fighting games require precise timing. There’s no way streaming something like a fighting game can work under these conditions. I was wrong. It performed extremely well! For a polygonal game where the camera is constantly moving around, I was surprised to find very little in terms of pixel artifacts. When it came to control latency, there was none (at least none that I noticed)! I was able to complete a character in arcade mode, perform a wide variety of moves, and execute counter holds without any problems. In the end, I was very impressed with PS Now and how it could handle a game like DOA 5.

Daytona USA, not so much. For the visuals, there were some artifacts around the RPM gauge, but not really anywhere else. The annoyance with Daytona came from control latency as there was enough of a delay between when I steered the car with the controller to when the car reacted to my inputs. This leads me to believe if more popular games on PlayStation Now are given something like higher priority when it comes to processing power or internet bandwidth. I not sure if the service got better over time or if I just got used to the latency, but I was eventually able to get 1st place at Three Seven Speedway.

So when it comes to games, this device knocks the socks! But what about video, you ask? Well, this is probably PSTV’s weakest point.

As of this writing, Netflix and Hulu are not available for PlayStation TV. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! How can a device with a name that includes the word “TV” in it not include these services! If they are available for the Vita, then why not for PSTV? They have the same OS! The only video service available will be the PlayStation Store. It’s better than nothing, but it’s a service where you’ll have to buy and download videos to your memory card, so make sure there’s adequate free space on it. This is a bummer because this could lead to juggling between deleting games and videos to ensure free space is always available. Either that or buy more (expensive) memory cards and then juggle between those.

There is however a trick to get Hulu on the PSTV. If you have a PS4, you can use Remote Play to stream Hulu running from the PS4 to the PSTV. This is alright, but now the device is dependent on another device, plus it needs to use the house bandwidth to stream the PS4 to the PSTV. It would have been a whole lot better if Hulu just ran natively on the PSTV.

But when it comes to watching videos from the PlayStation Store, it’s not so bad. I downloaded and watched the episode of MythBusters where they tested scenarios found in The Simpsons. While the video was in widescreen (I was afraid it was going to be the 4:3 version where vertical black bars are on both sides of the screen), there were some artifacts that can be seen, but you had to look hard to find them. I think this was happening because those videos were meant for the display of the Vita and not for a traditional HDTV. And I think that may be the reason why video streaming services are not available for the PSTV. If they were, then since these apps, like Netflix, were designed for the Vita, they were meant to use the display of the Vita, so all videos would have a lower quality level when watched on an HDTV. People would complain to no end why videos looked terrible when streamed from a PSTV. So to prevent this potential complaint from happening, Sony decided to prevent apps like Netflix and Hulu from running natively on the PSTV. But that’s my theory, anyways. We won’t know for sure unless they allow these apps to run natively so we can test out this crazy conspiracy theory of mine.

So, is this device for you? Is it worth it? I would say “yes” if you were looking for something that plays games. With the PlayStation TV you are getting four systems -- PS1, PS3, PSP, and Vita -- crammed into one tiny package. The negative is that it can’t play all Vita games and you’ll need a fast internet connection to enjoy playing PS3 games via the PlayStation Now service. I would recommend getting the bundle package as you get all of the essentials needed to get going, but only if the price is right; and $99.00 sounds like a fair price. Think about it. Amazon sells DualShock 3 controllers for $50.00, 8GB Vita memory cards for $25.00, and The LEGO Movie Videogame for $20.00. If you get the bundled package, it’s like getting the PSTV for free!

I would not recommend it if you want it for video services as you’re basically limited to just the TV shows and movies found on the PlayStation Store. Hopefully there’s going to be an update that allows other video streaming services to be installed on the device, because if they ever do it, I would tell everyone to stop whatever they’re doing and buy-this-device-immediately!

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