SINGAPORE — Sony won the attention of the gaming world when they unveiled the PlayStation (PS) Vita TV at the Tokyo Game Show last year. The Japanese technology giant’s smallest gaming console has finally made its way to our shores, and while it is not perfect, it is a box most PlayStation fans would love to own.

The PS Vita TV is essentially a device that lets you play PS Vita and PS Classics games from the comfort of your living room. It only weighs 110 grammes and is roughly the size of a 5-inch smartphone, making it extremely light and portable.

Setting up the Vita TV is pretty effortless. The Vita TV hooks up to a high-definition television via a HDMI cable, and the bundled mini USB cable is used to pair up the DualShock 3 controller with the device.

The Vita TV’s home screen looks very much like your standard Vita user interface but the menu items have been enlarged to fit the television screen. As a result the user interface looks stretched but thankfully its simplicity made it easy to navigate through using a DualShock controller.

Playing games on the Vita TV was surprisingly fun. The video output resolution is only 720p but most games are not graphic-intensive and finally being able to play games such as Mega Man and the very first Tekken on the big screen was certainly an enjoyable experience for me.

The lack of a touchscreen, gyroscope, and rear touchpad means PS Vita games that heavily utilise the portable console’s unique features such as Uncharted: Golden Abyss will be incompatible with the Vita TV.

However, the Vita TV does have a pointer feature, which allows players to use their controller to perform touch operations for supported games. Pressing the L3 and R3 buttons on the DualShock 3 controller brings up the front and rear touch pad controls respectively but it a clumsy solution that makes it very difficult to play Vita games that require precise touch gestures.

The Vita TV is a promising device let down by a user interface that was designed for a touchscreen. Its tiny form factor means you can take it along on travels and the fact that it will be available to stream PS3 games when Sony’s Gakai streaming service comes online is definitely something to look forward to.

Sony’s PlayStation Vita TV is now available in Singapore at the retail price of S$149. It will also be available in be available in a Value Pack which retails for S$219 and which comes with the DualShock 3 wireless controller.