Very interesting read on the similarities and differences technically of PS3/Vita games. Looks at KillZone, Uncharted, Virtua Tennis and more.

Not sure how much of the article I'd be allowed to put in OP, but the full thing can be read here.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-vs-ps-vita-face-off

Thoughts? Personally I think the Vita is incredibly close to the PS3 in terms of performance and capabilities given it's minute size. The PSP was always meant to be a PS2 in your pocket, but IMO struggled to come close to it's promises. When Vita was first unveiled, I expected the same of that, but as soon as I played Uncharted and Gravity Rush, I was converted!

I wouldn't go that far:

Uncharted

Shooting forms a large part of Uncharted: Golden Abyss, but confrontations set in detailed areas filled with enemies have a significant effect on performance, leading to barely playable frame-rates in places. Thankfully, this doesn't happen enough to spoil the overall experience.

Killzone

Performance analysis of Killzone: Mercenary preview code on Vita. The game doesn't quite manage a completely stable 30fps - and checkpoint saves cause very noticeable dips in frame-rate - but the level of smoothness is impressive for such a technically advanced handheld title.

The PSP could emulate the power of a PS2 in the right hands or developers. Just look at God Of War: Ghost Of Sparta, which comes incredible close to GOW II in terms of graphics, and GOW II is easily the best looking PS2 game ever.

Interesting article. Didn't read everything but checked out the videos, and I was very impressed by what the Vita can do. I agree that it is much closer to the PS3 than the PSP was to the PS2.

I (actually, my sister) had Ape Escape on the PSP, and even though it did look sharper overall (and certain designs were completely changed) one part I didn't like was that in one of the later levels it took out a camera that showed the main character Spike platforming (along with several in-game screens scattered throughout the level making it have a picture in picture effect). That was done on the PS1 (!), but PSP removed it for some weird reason.

Pretty much all the videos of the Vita showed that it could do what the PS3 does, albeit with less pizzazz. But as for gameplay, nothing was completely taken out. For example, in the Streetfighter X Tekken face-off, even though the character designs lost a lot of the extra shadowing effects and anti-aliasing, the overall shapes and proportions were the same and even every part within the background remained intact. Sure, some graphical quality was lost, but the game didn't just get rid of the dinosaurs in the backgrounds or anything like that. Off topic, I actually liked the characters without the console versions' extra shadowing. Seemed way more like old school SF and even like Tekken than the style that had all those weird shadowing techniques used on PS3. I'd like to see a SF X Tekken with the Vita's style of characters but with PS3's sharpness.

Keyword: Close.

I said how "close" it was "given it's minute size". Context :)

And even then Uncharted never gets to unplayable levels :/.

The PSP could properly emulate the power of a PS2 in the right hands of developers. Just look at GOW: Ghost Of Sparta (PSP's best looking game) vs GOW II (PS2's best looking game). It has come very close.

There were some very good games on PSP. But the scale had to be greatly cut back, the number of enemies on screen at once on Ghost of Sparta was due to hardware limitations. Very impressive achievement for the hardware it was running on, there were also some very good later games from Big Big, Studio Cambridge etc.

Motorstorm Arctic Edge was for me, the first handheld game that actually felt like it hadn't been compromised in anyway by being on a handheld and was a fantastic game too, actually my favourite Motorstorm

Little Big Planet was another fantastic PSP game, though again there were clear compromises (only 2 layers to levels).

Yeah, I read this earlier today. Found it very interesting.

I think what Vita can do within the bounds of being portable is very impressive.

If we see more PS3 games on Vita in future, I hope developers continue to make cutbacks in the right places i.e. sacrificing visual fidelity for framerate like Criterion did with NFS; rather than the other way round like Team Ninja did for NGS2+.

The comparison videos were also really cool to watch.