Whatever happened to remote play?

Rewind to June 2011 and E3; Nintendo took to the stage and unveiled the Wii's successor, the Wii-u, and proceeded to show off some mind boggling features. Perhaps top of that list of features, was the ability the Wii-u had to enable a user to discard their tv's and continue their game on the systems tablet style controller, a dream for gamers the world over who long to take their Skyrim addiction with them to the bedroom or, heaven forbid, on the loo even!
At the same time our beloved Sony was showing off its own new hardware at E3, now called PSVita, then known simply as NGP. Sony would have seen Nintendo showing off their new system and they would have remembered a time long ago when they where launching another handheld, the PSP, and they would have found the WII-u reminding them of their own attempt at, what they call, remote play.
Fast forward now to the tokyo game show 2011; Sony unveil remote play for PSVita, their showcase - Guerrilla game's Killzone 3, running on PS3, controlled and viewed remotely using a PSVita; now possible due to the PSVita have dual analogues.
Sony fans the world over rejoiced; it was a confirmation that the number one selling point of Nintendo's machine would also be available through their Sony bought products.
But what happened next?
Simply put - nothing.
Since the TGS; remote play has all but vanished, leaving gamers, many who plumped for Vita on the strength of Rp, feeling frustrated and puzzled. See, Sony are not talking remote play now - at all. Sony have gone dark on this - why? Whatever happened to remote play? I can see four possible explanations why Sony have become reluctant to discuss remote play - these are my musings.

1) It does not work.

But we've seen it working - we hear you cry.
Yes we have; but ask yourselves this - have you seen it run well?
Even though anyone who has seen Killzone 3 running in Rp will admit it looks awesome, it is widely accepted that there is some degree of lag present, and its clearly evident in some of the demo shown. We all know, lag is the bane of all gamers and I doubt Sony would pass a feature that is not technically perfect, not on purpose at least.
The lag would seem to be a clear issue for Sony in these early days of Rp development and has reared it's ugly head in more recent videos too. Hackers running their PS3 system on cusom firmware have been able to activate RP on their Vitas and have managed to get virtually any game up and running on the handheld. Titles such as Battlefield 3, Red dead redemption and Arkham city have all been demoed on sites like Youtube in recent weeks and months. The one thing all these unsanctioned demos share in common with Sony's own example? That's right - lag!
So will Sony fix the lag and release Rp, or are they hoping that if they keep quiet on the feature from now on, that it will simply be forgotten.
If it's the latter; then such a failure is sure to have all forum dwellers face palming all the way from towns to Tokyo.

2) The publishers are not happy.

Sony have stated that they are not able to provide remote play in the form of one simple firmware patch that enables all titles. In fact, it is down to the publishers to provide title updates to each and every game they want to see work with remote play.

Think about it. You're a big publisher; Sony arrives one day and tells you they want you to provide a patch for your successful PS3 games, they say they want you to enable RP on them. This will enable gamers to play your titles on their PSVita at no extra cost. Basically they are asking you to make your game available on a new platform, you will not receive anything for those gamers now being able to play your game on, not one as intended, but now two separate devices, and then Sony explain that you have to pay them for said privilege. That's right; you have to pay them. You see patching a title on PS3 costs - a lot, bout $40,000 in fact - and all for zero gain.
Now come on; all the publishers I know of are great organisations that care about their customers, but what none of them are is naive, or indeed mugs.
If this is going to be major problem to RP, perhaps then, Sony need to look into new strategies, such as monetising these required patches, giving publishers a reason to care.

3) Sony think PSVita titles wont sell.

It has to have at least, crossed the minds of the Sony hierarchy that, if they press on with RP, original titles developed for PSVita might suffer with regard to sales.
Will gamers buy PSVita games or will they simply opt for PS3 games that can be played on the PS3 or remotely on the portable device. It has to be a question Sony have asked themselves. Perhaps they did not like the answer.

4) Sony are planning something special.

E3 2011 was a long time ago, but 2012's event is right around the corner and this year Sony is rumoured to be facing a bit of a dilemma. On one hand, Sony has stated it envisages a ten year life cycle for the PS3 and is in no hurry to release a PS4 (remember they are only now beginning to turn a profit this gen). On the other hand, they are under real pressure to provide their consumer base with solid reasons to remain with PS3 and not jump to another platform, with at least one of their main competitors launching new hardware at the show, possibly both.
What then can Sony do? It would seem they have two options; the first would be to stand firm and hope the do not lose gamers due to ageing hardware, the second would be to submit and unveil a PS4. But is there a third option? There just might be.
Sony's third strategy could be to extend the life of the PS3 by giving the platform something new, a new spark of life as it were. Remote play could be just the thing to do that in Sony's eyes. If they were to successfully demo a whole new relationship between PS3 and PSVita at E3, their focus being crossplay and remote play, that would surely steal some of the Wii-U's thunder and quite possibly give the PS3 the shot in the arm it will surely need to last ten years - much like we have seen Microsoft do with Kinect.

So there you have it. To be honest, it could be anyone one of those reason why we have not seen remote play yet. We hope it's number 3.