Now, at gamescom, I finally got to see some of these game modes in action.

Virtua Tennis 4’s core experience is nearly identical to its recently-released PS3 counterpart; you can create a character, start a career, and participate in tournaments while enhancing your skills through all kinds of bizarre tennis-related skill tests. Likewise, you can jump into the shoes of Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, or other real-world tennis stars.

What PS Vita brings to the court is a new, yet optional way to control the main serve-and-volley action, plus a series of “VT Apps.”

The core gameplay opens up considerably thanks to the PS Vita touch screen. Tap on the screen and your player will run to that spot. Once in place, you swipe in the direction you want to hit the ball, utilizing different gestures for topspin shots, lobs, backhands and more. Multitouch is employed to launch a lethal power shot – just swipe using two fingers to add an exclamation mark to a long volley.

Of course, you can still use the traditional stick-and-button controls, but here’s where it gets interesting: since both types of controls are always enabled, you can use a combination of the two. After a couple of games, I was navigating around the court with the left analog stick, and directing my shots with my right index finger on the screen. You can leverage any mix of touch and traditional controls, even in the middle of a point.

You might not always have enough time to power through a five-set marathon match, and so Virtua Tennis 4 for PS Vita includes a number of “VT apps” which are exclusive to the platform. My fave is called Touch Vs – a top-down mode for two players to compete on a single PS Vita. By turning the PS Vita on its side — air-hockey style — each player gets an analog stick and some screen real estate to shoot. It should prove to be a fun way squeeze in some two-player competition (and start a few conversations, too).

Additionally, Virtua Tennis 4 takes advantage of the Vita’s gyroscopes with the first person VR match (see the video above), and skill-building Rock the Boat, where you’re controlling your player as well as a ship you can lean back and forth. Virtua Tennis 4 also plans to take advantage of the system’s cameras through use of augmented reality, though Sega wasn’t yet ready to show that off.

Virtua Tennis 4 will be ready for launch when the PS Vita goes on sale. Tennis game aficionados should probably plan on taking it home with them the day they pick up a PlayStation Vita.

Hello everyone, we’re back for some more Virtua Tennis 4 action, and today we’ll be focusing on some news regarding demos. Yes, you read that right, demos (plural). We have two of these and they’re both are coming exclusively to the PlayStation 3.

One of our big new features for Virtua Tennis 4 is the World Tour career mode, and this time around we’ve decided to rip up the calendar-based career mode and upgrade it to a more fun and intuitive board game style.

It’s a completely different take on the career mode as the team really wanted to put the fun back into the single player experience. Whilst the calendar themed career was enjoyable, we received feedback from our fans that once they finished the first season the subsequent seasons had a very similar feel to them, which led to a feeling of repetition. So the new World Tour is much shorter and your career runs over four seasons, each taking place in a different region of the world culminating in a major tournament, firstly in Australia, then France, then England and finally the USA.

There are many different paths you can take to reach each of the major tournaments so no two careers will ever be the same. However, along the way you will need to train, participate in tournaments, keep a close eye on your condition, and also boost your star rating by signing autographs and attending charity events.

The key to your success lies within boosting your star rating both on and off the court so you will have the ranking and status to get invited to the biggest tournaments the World Tour has to offer.

As it’s quite a revolution for the Virtua Tennis career mode, we thought the best way for people to get an idea of what this new World Tour has to offer would be via demo. You will be able to play through roughly 1/3 of your first season, which will involve designing your character, entering a few tournaments and boosting your profile.
Keep in mind, it’s only a teaser of what you can expect from the full World Tour mode, but you will be able to continue your career if you buy Virtua Tennis 4. So in essence it acts as a way of getting your career started before the game is out. Check out the trailer below to find out more about the new World Tour mode.

The Virtua Tennis 4 World Tour demo will be available on April 19th after 5PM PST for PS3 gamers only. And before we go, also keep an eye out for another exclusive PlayStation Move and 3D demo due for release as the real tennis season reaches its peak!

Everybody over here deeply appreciates your concern and consideration for us. Things have still not gotten back to normal, and areas around Tokyo are suffering from planned outages due to electricity shortages, but we are doing our very best to deliver Virtua Tennis 4 to you.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy the game when it’s released!

Today’s blog is geared up to tell you all about what’s new for Virtua Tennis 4 on the PlayStation 3, there are a host of new features including PlayStation Move compatibility, a brand new World Tour and online centre, plus plenty of others.

However, I’m happy to announce that on the PlayStation 3 VT fans can expect some extra exclusive content not available on other platforms, and today is where we’ll tell you a little bit more about this.

Firstly, the game features legend players for anyone wanting to relive some of tennis’ classic moments. On the PS3 you’ll be able to get your hands on Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and Pat Rafter, who will be exclusive PS3 players and playable from the moment you load up the game.

Here are some renders of the players of each player and we also have a really nice 3D screen of each of them so you can take a look at how they’ll appear in the game. To scroll around the 3D screen simply play the video and click and drag your mouse forward and backwards.

Legend players are not the only piece of exclusive content on offer for PS3 gamers, as Virtua Tennis 4 will also feature 2 exclusive Party Games. The first one is a trip back to an old VT classic in the form of the very popular Pin Crusher, where you are challenged to play a game of tenpin bowling serving the ball to try and knock down skittle on the opposite side of the court.

This is playable with control pad only, but for fans of the PlayStation Move there is also an exclusive Party Game called Net Blitz, which challenges people to build up a score by returning balls into different sized nets. The smaller the net the more points it will earn you if you hit it. It’s a very fun experience using the 1:1 PlayStation Move compatibility and is sure to have people in living rooms fighting for the high score as you progress through the 5 levels.

The other thing I’d like to talk about today is a fantastic mini-game we are developing for Home Square. This is due to launch in line with the French Open and has a Space Invaders take on it. Check it out from 22nd May and see if you can get a high enough score to earn our exclusive VT4 personal space and some exciting items with a VT spin.

Check out the videos and screens of both Party Games for a taste of what you can expect. We’ll also be following up in the coming weeks with some more blogs when we have more news and on demos and other areas of the game.

I recently spoke to the game’s Executive Producer, Mie Kumagai, and asked why she had chosen to develop a tennis game when she served us the first in the Virtua Tennis series, back in 1999.

“When we first started the series, we wanted to make a casual arcade game that everyone could pick up and enjoy,” she said. “Sport seemed like a good place to start because it appeals to many people that wouldn’t usually play games. That was the start of the series, but we reached a point where we were looking for something new; it’s around this time that we heard about PlayStation Move.”

Virtua Tennis 4 lets you step into the shoes of some of the world’s best tennis pros. Every swing of the racquet can be performed with the PlayStation Move motion controller and you can judge the approach of the ball better than ever, thanks to stereoscopic 3D support. I asked Kumagai for her thoughts on Move and her philosophy behind working with a motion controller.

“I saw PlayStation Move at quite an early stage in its development,” she replied, “and I remember being curious about what Sony [Computer Entertainment] had been working on and excited about the new technology.”

“We have two points of consideration when it comes to the game’s controls. The first is that we want the game to be playable without the user having to press any buttons at all; in other words, you are relying entirely on your own movement.”

“The second consideration is to achieve a good balance between first and third person points of view. If we wan the game to be totally realistic, then first person would be the way to go, but that way you kind of lose the fun of controlling top tennis players like Roger Federer, so we have aimed for the right mixture of the two.”

The demo available to play at gamescom (and my desk) features Roger Federer and Andy Murray. Your character’s left and right movement is automatic but each swing of the racquet must be performed by the player and you can drop back or rush to the net by physically stepping back or forward. There’s a dynamic camera system in place, so when the ball is in the other half of the court, the camera pans out so that you can see your position.

When the ball is coming towards you, it glides seamlessly into a first person viewpoint where you can see your racquet in front of you and time your swing accordingly. You can even twist the racquet to adjust its face when it connects with the ball, allowing skilled players to apply spin. It’s accessible and extremely intuitive, especially when playing in stereoscopic 3D.

“The balance between accessibility and realism in very important when it comes to gameplay, but I think that Virtua Tennis with Move has a really good system, where the gameplay and the controls are in perfect sync. Building the game up from this existing system wasn’t too hard for us,” Kumagai added.

Virtua Tennis 4 will be available on PlayStation 3 in Spring 2011.