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There's no denying it has been a tough year for Sony's handheld business, with Vita and PSP failing to meet the company's sales forecasts, but after 12 months on the market there are also a number of reasons to be positive about the new system's future.

Perhaps most exciting is the potential of Vita and PS3 to effectively emulate the Wii U's dual-screen tech. This week will see the release of LittleBigPlanet 2 Cross-Controller DLC, which will allow users to play the PS3 game using their Vita as a controller.

And as part of a just-published, comprehensive analysis of the Vita's first year on the market, Tom O'Connor, a senior producer at Sony XDev Studio Europe, told us there are plenty of exciting Cross-Controller options for developers to explore.

"We're only now starting to understand the potential of both devices working together," he said, adding that technically it would be possible to play Wii U games like ZombiU using PS3 and Vita.

"Cross-controller gives publishers an extra option. There will be some games that are being developed for other dual-screen platforms, though I can't name any names, and we can allow that to be possible on PS3. That gives publishers more multiplatform opportunities.

"We definitely need more than one game to flaunt the Cross-Controller functionality," O'Connor added. "I know that internal teams are looking into it, and I'm pretty sure there have been some discussions with third-party publishers too."

For a thorough analysis of the handheld's first year performance, read the full feature, A second look at PS Vita.