Today during a presentation at the Tokyo Game Show 2011 in Japan, Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida demonstrated the PlayStation Vita’s remarkable ability to remotely play PlayStation 3 games. Mr. Yoshida then proceeded to get his butt kicked by the Helghast in front of a bunch of people.

The PS Vita’s sharp five inch display faithfully showed off the beautiful shooter. The tiny portable generally did a good job of keeping up with the massive explosions and frenzied firefights, but the framerate did suffer a few times. The dual analog sticks of the PS Vita made navigation and shooting look easy. Mr. Yoshida explained that the missing shoulder and analog stick buttons can be compensated for by using the Vita’s rear touch panel. I’m not sure how configuring these controls works or how it feels, but it’s interesting way to address the problem. Whether it was nerves, lack of practice, or a clunky interface, Mr. Yoshida struggled with the game, often firing rounds clear past the enemy and falling to his death.

The remote play feature also works with television programs. It appears that you can stream a show to your PS Vita while someone uses the TV for something else. This functionality reminds me of one of the Wii U’s biggest selling points.

Yoshida said that technology for remote play is in the hands of developers. There’s no telling if all games will be available for remote play, but Killzone 3 certainly is. Let’s cross our fingers that this awesome feature becomes widespread across PS3 games.