A trusted PlayStation 4 developer source with a proven track record for accuracy has told Digital Foundry that Sony has mandated Vita Remote Play for all upcoming PS4 games - except those that require the use of its bundled stereoscopic camera, the PS4 Eye.
The news is a shot in the arm for the beleaguered PlayStation Vita, which has failed to attract commercial success in line with Sony's hopes for the system, and sets the stage for the handheld to provide the same kind of off-TV play that makes the Wii U GamePad such a useful gadget for gaming around the home (and indeed elsewhere).
Remote Play works by downscaling the 1080p framebuffer to the Vita's native 960x544 resolution, using the PS4's in-built hardware h.264 video encoder to compress the image. This is then beamed out over WiFi to the Vita, which decodes the video and sends back controller inputs to the PlayStation 4. It's effectively OnLive cloud streaming technology relocated to the home - the difference being that image quality issues can be resolved through much higher-bandwidth video, while input latency is cut down considerably owing to the localised nature of the network.
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