Sony unveiled its pocket-sized set-top box in Japan last year, and since then us Western gamers have been clamoring for our own version of the PlayStation TV. The miniature device showed up in the U.S. on Tuesday, and Mashable spent time putting it through its paces.

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The PlayStation TV is more likely to compete with devices such as the OUYA or other game consoles than be a replacement for your Apple TV or Chromecast— for reasons that will become apparent below. However, it has a nice price: The PS TV is just $99 for the device itself, or for an additional $40 you can get the PS TV, an 8GB proprietary Sony memory card, a PlayStation 3 controller and a copy of The Lego Movie game. Considering the memory cards, which are incredibly overpriced, cost $20 to $30 by themselves for 8GB, the bundle is a pretty good deal.

Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard

Out of the box

The PlayStation TV is incredibly small, with a great form factor. It's even smaller than an Apple TV. It can easily slip into any entertainment setup.

The back hides an A/C power input, along with HDMI, USB and Ethernet jacks. There's a slot for the Sony PlayStation Vita memory card, and a slot on the side for PlayStation Vita cartridges. The USB port sadly can't be used for extra storage, or to import media to the PlayStation TV. It's simply there to connect a controller for charging.

After a simple setup process, you'll be dropped into a menu that will look very familiar to Vita owners. The interface is completely identical, blown up to fit a television. Globular app icons float 10 per page, with pages filling up as you add games and apps. The icons seem to shimmer as they hang in three rows across the screen. What's unfortunate about this setup is the Vita app icons make sense for touch, not for controller navigation.

This interface shovelware is even more evident when trying to close an app. On the Vita, you'd simply pull on the app's folded right corner to dismiss it. Try pulling on a corner with a controller. It's surprising that Sony didn't try to modify the UI to something closer to the PS3 or PS4, which is already built with controller input in mind.

Because the whole experience is just an enlarged Vita screen, the text is huge. Apps such as the PlayStation Store don't feel like they scale up well. Put it on a TV and it just looks weird, like viewing a computer monitor on too low of a resolution. (I thought there might be a resolution solution in settings, and didn't find one.)

The PlayStation TV next to an Apple TV, for size comparison. Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard

PlayStation TV game library

Thankfully diving into games made me forget my UI troubles. The PlayStation TV has a diverse library, thanks mostly to Sony's CrossPlay support that brought many titles to Vita at the same time as PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4. There were a lot of Vita titles available in the PlayStation Store for download, including download-only independent titles. I was happy to be able to re-download titles I already digitally owned for Vita or PS3 to my PlayStation TV, like Spelunky and Dragon's Crown.

Games range in price from a couple of bucks to $39.99, and existing PlayStation Plus members — Sony's $50-a-year bonus game program — will get all their old games and a few new games per month for free.

And, best of all, the PlayStation TV is basically a $100 Minecraft machine, thanks to the title's release on Vita this week. This could be a low-cost option for parents wanting to get their kids into the game that don't own a console or computer.

There are a lot of classic PlayStation One titles available too, although playing some of those aging titles on a TV screen might be less nostalgic and more painful. Not all early 3D games have aged well.

Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard

Streaming game options

The PlayStation TV also works with PlayStation Now, Sony's cloud streaming game service, and it can stream a full PlayStation 4 experience from another room in your house.

PlayStation Now allows players to rent games from previous-generation PlayStation 3, and there is a wide selection of titles available. Game rentals can range from $2.99 to $4.99 for four hours on most titles, to closer to $30 for 90-day rentals. Consumers have rightly complained some of these prices are exorbitant, though there is a middle sweet spot in the pricing for seven-day rentals, which range from $5.99 to $8.99. There are more than 100 titles available, ranging from bigger hits, more obscure games, and even some brand new releases.

The "PS4 link" function brings the full PlayStation 4 experience onto the PlayStation TV. You can access any games or media available on that console from another TV in your house, but it only works on the same network.

It's important to note that streaming does not seem to work well over wireless. While Brooklyn, where I did a majority of my testing, may not have the best infrastructure, many other parts of the country suffer from the same problem. (For those interested, I tested this at work in Manhattan on a T1 connection, and at home with Verizon FiOS.)

Sony says very specifically on the package materials that a wired connection is recommended, and connecting via ethernet made games that were unplayable run perfectly. So if your home setup doesn't allow for wired connections for both the PS4 and PS TV, it might not work. It's really cool when it does though, giving users the option of accessing their entire PS4 library in a different part of the house.

Can it compete with other set-top boxes?

The PlayStation TV has huge potential to provide an all-in-one set-top box solution that provides both streaming games and other entertainment. Unfortunately, the PlayStation TV is totally devoid of apps required to do so. I really was surprised to see a platform that Netflix isn't available on, but the "Apps" section of the PlayStation Store was barren. No Hulu Plus. No Amazon Prime Video. Instead, we get two lesser-known video services: Film distribution platform Crackle, and Crunchyroll, which caters to anime and Korean TV fans.

You can purchase movies to rent or own on the PlayStation TV, but that doesn't seem like the direction consumers are moving in.

Huge potential on the horizon

The PlayStation TV's bumpy issues are easy to patch in the future. The interface can be cleaned up, and entertainment apps can be added. The great news is that people will now be able to enjoy many of the great games available on the Vita at a lower price, especially since the platform has recently become a magnet for unique indie games. If you have the right connection type, PlayStation Now also offers a lot of entertainment value in the future. All of this in a teeny form factor and a pretty low price point.