I know we’re all excited for The Last Story finally being released in North America, but Sony just had their Gamescom presentation today. There’s too much stuff to cover in one article, so the coverage is going to be split into two. I’ll be talking about the hardware-related stuff in this one. An article devoted to the new PS3 and Vita games is coming soon.
Their hardware announcements leaned heavily on the cross-compatibility with the PS3 and the Vita. Sony revealed that not only will PlayStation Plus members get a storage update of up to 1 GB (as opposed to the original 150 MB), but PlayStation Plus will also be coming to the Vita via a firmware update. They also revealed that the Vita will be getting PSOne support and that you can use buttons on the main menu as an alternative to the touch screen. This firmware update will be released on August 28th.
Taking a page from the developers of Retro City Rampage, Sony also revealed that certain PS3 games will have a Cross-Play promotion, giving you a Vita version of the game for free when you buy the PS3 version. Current titles that fall under this category include PlayStation All Stars: Battle Royale, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, and Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault (otherwise known as Q-Force in Europe).
The cross-platform compatibility doesn’t stop there. They also announced a new feature called the PS3-Vita Cross-Controller. It allows you to control a PS3 game with a Vita as the controller, as well as utilize new features with the touch-screen and touchpad, making it similar to the Wii U. This was demonstrated with a new level in LittleBigPlanet 2. This will also be part of the Vita firmware update.
Finally, a brief mention about the Wonderbook. That was it.
For more information about Sony’s announcements, check out their blog posts here.
