Sony wants devs to cross-pollinate Vita and PS3

Future PlayStation games can be packaged for both Vita and PS3, with cloud data allowing customers to access a game from either device, a senior Sony executive has said.

Shuhei Yoshida, chief of Sony Worldwide Studios, told Eurogamer that it was “totally feasible” for developers to build a connected experience between PS Vita and PS3 editions of the same game.

“One of the games we’re making, called Ruin, we are developing both the Vita version and the PS3 version of that title. Both games will be packaged together,” he said.

“You can play the game at home on PS3, save your data on our PSN server on the cloud, and you can continue playing the game on PS Vita by downloading the save from the PSN. And you can do vice versa. It’s a continuous experience, playing the same game on PS Vita and PS3.”

Yoshida said this approach, despite the associated costs, has already garnered lots of interest from publishers and developers.

“At Konami, Kojima-san announced the concept of Transfarring. The initial product will be between PSP and PS3, but he is also talking about between PS3 and Vita,” he aid.

Building a cross-platform experience between PS Vita and PS3 is feasible because the technical power of both systems is fairly equal, Yoshida said.

But he clarified that Sony’s wider strategy for PS Vita is to host unique experiences that sell the device’s cutting-edge features.

“More games like Ruin will be released. But that said, PS Vita has lots of unique functionality you cannot replicate on PS3,” he said.

“The larger focus we have from worldwide studios standpoint is to create games on PS Vita you cannot really experience anywhere else, like the use of touch or camera.

“We showed a video of how LittleBigPlanet on Vita can use the camera to capture textures and use attach to edit your level. That’s great. You cannot do that on the console. That’s a larger focus.”

PS Vita is due for western release in 2012.