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PSVita Released In the USA and Europe
YokimaSun writes "Sony has today released the PSVita in the U.S. and Europe. The console comes with features such as dual touch pads at the front and rear, dual cameras at the front and rear, dual analog sticks, a 5-inch OLED screen, GPS, six-axis motion sensors and a three-axis electronic compass. The PSVita is Sony's attempt at stealing the thunder away from the 3DS but also bringing back the gamers lost to the likes of Android and iOS Devices. The PSVita in Japan sold massively on its first release week but since has struggled and sold less than the PSP. With this in mind sites like Amazon have been offering many different deals to entice people to buy the console. Can Sony stop homebrewers from taking over this console?"
I have seen them in people's hands for a week now. One of the gamers here at the office had his in last friday showing it off.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...when you pry one *into* my cold, dead hands.
Apparently Sony is STILL letting the Hollywood Divisions call the shots, though. There's a scathing review here.
Any console manufacturer that tosses compatibility in the trash is saying "hey, feel absolutely free to take a look at all the competition and see if there's something better!" at the very same time you're steaming mad at them for turning your investment into a waste.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I picked up one early. Got the 3G early Adopter's Bundle, which came with a free month of 250mb of 3G and activation, an 8 gig memory card and a free game.
So I've more than made up my losses for going 3G, but the damn thing decided to not power back on when I got to work and I wanted to check the status of it's charge. I searched around, found out you had to hold the power button for SIXTY seconds, then another 2-3.
That aside, the screen is BEAUTIFUL. I hope more devs aside from Kojima take advantage of the rear touchpad. Played with the interface a little. Very smooth. iOS smooth. I just hope owning this thing isn't the pain in the ass I fear it will be.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Can Sony stop homebrewers from taking over this console?
More important question -- will Sony stop getting in the way of people wanting to make games and thus make themselves relevant again? Can you imagine how much different the Android and iOS situation would be today if Apple and Google were trying the "make life hell for developers" strategy?
also bringing back the gamers lost to the likes of Android and IOS Devices
LOL. The good news is, you've got a joystick. The bad news is, the games cost $40 instead of 99 cents. Couldn't be more "sony" of a product, especially the non-usb usb cable. How sony of them.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
That's like most Sony stuff of late. Take a good idea but hamper it with BS restrictions and let greed get in the way, then blame piracy for the lack of sales.
Sane Exec: "Lets add backwards compatibility!"
Shill Exec #1: "But only via download services."
Shill Exec #2:"Which people must again pay for."
Shill Exec #3:"And only in the Asian market."
CEO: "Yes, that sounds like a winner men."
If the sales in these 2 regions don't do well, they will seriously need to consider the same action Nintendo took with the awful sales for 3DS, instant price cut and reward those who bought early. (otherwise face being hated by them, of course they'd likely do that anyway)
Sadly, it seems the whole iPad generation really did hurt gaming. Not so much consoles, but certainly the handhelds.
The poor sales in Japan might just be that Japan are going off handhelds, it might not be the same over here. I guess we will see when the numbers come in.
One thing they need to do especially is drop the damn price for those memory cards. Those prices are insane, especially if they are hoping people will download.
Good luck to both of them. I don't want that trash iPad ever becoming a winner. It is terrible for any serious gaming. It has the precision of a firehose with a spray nozzle. It works brilliantly with a very small subset of game control schemes, but fails terribly in everything else simply because of its size, the fact you need to grip with either one hand or the other and that there is no feedback.
PSV is actually a really good mix of control schemes that could cover everything, but it sadly came at such a point where the industry might be going through a huge change...
Sony just can't stop screwing itself over... the last news is that Sony will NOT be offering the service available to the Japanese to turn UMD discs into downloadable games. The reason? Low sales... piracy off course.
So... who is affected by this? The pirates? Non-Sony customers? No. They are not affected. ONLY paying customers who bought Sony products are affected by this, punished to either carry two consoles or re-buy their games at near full price.
Sony is already way behind in the west so to combat this, they provide less service to the few customers they managed to get. Either this shows an amazing disconnect with the real world by Sony exec's or they don't mind sending the message "If you buy our goods, you must be stupid enough to pay twice for the same game".
You might think Sony would have been warned to provide an amazing experience after the failure of the 3DS. It wasn't just the 3D element, it was that the device was a throwback compared to the DS XL and just didn't offer a smooth or indeed even better experience then a mobile phone, let alone a tablet. Look at the 3DS again, the screens are amazingly bad considered against the latest phones. They aren't worse then previous gameboys but those didn't have any other devices people ALREADY will have in their pocket anyway.
My prediction is that the Vita will fail even harder then the PSP. The line up games are again very slim pickings with some of the bigger games still not realizing that a MOBILE games is played OUTSIDE and that therefor the display needs to be extremely clear because a sudden ray of light while in a dark area can ruin the game. In normal PC/Console games such dark moments are called atmoshere, outside they are called "I can't see a fucking thing" and then your avatar dies.
Early GBA games required you to write down a very long hex key to "save" the game... game companies seem to barely have moved on from this... except android/ios game makers. Do you know WHY angry birds is such a success? Because you can easily start it, easily resume it. If the crappy controls cause a miss, you can easily restart with no punishment. The game would do EVEN better if you could skip levels. I never bought it because I never made it past a certain point so what is the point of buying even more levels?
Mobile games have to fun, easy to play, fast to start, playable on the go and in changing light and not punish the player for having to suddenly stop playing or even accidental input. And they should be cheap.
Sony hasn't gotten any of this right. The hardware looks okay but so did the original. And as said, this time there is a LOT more competition, competition that is often consider a MUST have (can you really exist anymore without a cellphone?). What about people without a smartphone you say? Right... they do exist but if you think the overlap between (refuses to buy a smartphone) and (wants to buy a fairly expensive handheld game console) is very large... well you must be working for Sony.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The only reason I have one is because I won it from TacoBell. I can't even use some of the features because I don't have a PS3. None of my old PSP games will work on it (even the downloadable ones). None of my friends with a PS3 are interested in buying it from me at half MSRP... :(
http://unlock.tacobell.com/?utm_campaign=PSVita2012
Budding video game developers still need to make games that Anonymous Coward considers "shitty" while learning to develop less-"shitty" games, just as budding writers' initial output falls into Theodore Sturgeon's 90 percent crap.
There's a reason why Nintendo is my favorite of the big three video game companies, and it's not just nostalgia. Nintendo isn't interested in crippling their own hardware in order to "protect" their own movie studio or their own music publishing business. They don't have a giant monopoly whose profits they're using to muscle their way into other areas of business. (Back in the day if you did something similar with gas stations it was definitely illegal.)
Nintendo may have done some pretty questionable things back when they were on top in the video game industry, but even then they were still restricted to the video game industry. Maybe if they'd expanded into other areas and became just as big as Sony and Microsoft then they'd be pulling the same kind of crap, but they didn't so they aren't.
Nintendo certainly has their own problems, but currently those problems stem from trying to force the game industry towards areas i don't especially care for and failing to butter up third party developers sufficiently. I'm "forced" to invest in Sony's console if i want new "old-fashioned" games like Disgaea, however in the portable arena the DS and 3DS have plenty of content spanning all genres, including the "classic" ones, so as long as i'm willing to accept alternative games in the same genre i can avoid Sony for this particular case.
But as usual these are my own opinions, i'm sure others think Sony is a great company and love the Vita.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Maybe those platforms created gamers out of those who didn't play games before, but I don't think there are that many gamers that were lost to iOS and Android.
Twinstiq, game news
Sony you are dead to me. Still. Although I'll keep watching my 10 year old 30-inch Trinitron THAT WILL NOT DIE!!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
If price of games was the only differentiating favor in a gaming platform, nobody would play anything other than Solitaire and Minesweeper. The platforms don't compete with each other any more than a thirty year-old Datsun competes with a modern Ford Focus or either of those compete with a Ferrari 458.
MGS: Portable Ops rewarded you with unlockables depending on where you used the GPS to find unlockables. Near a 7/11? Unlocked a special edition new recruit. Etc. etc.
Handheld is supposed to be done outside. Having GPS makes sense.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
In my experience, most phone games aren't worth more than $1, and many are overpriced at a dollar. They are very simple little games. Now that's fine, and indeed what I want for my phone. When I'm waiting at the doctor's office or something I want a game I can play for a bit and set down when needed.
However to pretend that they are in the same league as $40-60 computer or console games is silly. 50 Android games would not give me the same entertainment as one computer game does. Quantity doesn't out do quality always.
err, more like the UMD drive was wildly unpopular or adding the UMD drive would've been a pain in the ass on the engineering side.
I don't get it. Just a few weeks ago /.ers were bagging on the UMD drive. They get rid of it, not just in the Vita but in the PSP GO as well, and ... people are still bitching.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
at best a tetris tech demo
Would you consider a polished falling block game to be still a "tech demo"? If so, I used to make falling block games for the NES and GBA: Lockjaw (PC, GBA) is like Tetris but you can change a lot of the rules, and Luminesweeper (GBA) proves that the PSP's flagship launch title underused the PSP. This is in addition to a collection I'm making of some worthwhile homebrew games for the NES. And have you tried Super Bat Puncher yet?
Part of the problem keeping freeware games developed by hobbyists at roughly the complexity of calculator games or 1985 NES games is what I've been calling the "complexity wall". Games need more art than other kinds of software, and there aren't as many ready-made art libraries available to hobbyists as, say, code libraries. It's the rare developer who has skills in both coding and art or the ability to work together on a fairly complex project. But if there's a chance to sell copies of a game, developers skilled in one area will put more effort into hiring people skilled in other areas. This, of course, requires an indie-friendly market. For consoles, there's Xbox Live Indie Games. For touch-screen handhelds, there are Android Market, AppsLib, and the like. But what for handhelds with buttons?
I picked up my 3G model this morning. It sat on my desk at work all day glowering at me, but I've been able to mess around with it a bit since I got home. My experiences thus far can be summed up in three observations:
1) As a piece of kit to hold in your hand, it is gorgeous. It looks and feels like a premium piece of kit. It's possibly a bit on the large side for a handheld, but the quality of build feels great. The display quality is amazing and the touchscreens are extremely precise.
2) As a handheld gaming console, it is excellent. The games I've tried thus far: Uncharted, Wipeout and Super Stardust are all closer to PS3 quality than to PSP/3DS quality. The dual analogue sticks are an absolute revelation and it would be very hard to go back to a portable gaming platform that didn't support them (be it the 3DS or iPad) without feeling a twinge of regret.
3) As a general user-experience it is, at best, below average. And here's where a bit of explanation is needed.
I get the machine home, fire it up and start going through the initial setup. I set my region, set the time and date and connect it to my home wifi. I decide to leave the 3G network setup for later. So far, so good. I then get prompted to link the device to my PSN account. Great - I like the idea of having the same account shared between my PS3 and my Vita and I'm sure that Sony have made the process nice and easy. So I tap the box for "I already have a PSN account" without a care in the world.
The device does a quick scan of the network and tells me that I need to do a firmware update before I can connect to the PSN. At this point, I feel a bit irritated. The PS3 has been massively compromised by the frequency of and time required for firmware updates, and it doesn't bode well that the Vita is headed down the same path. But... whatever.
I click "ok".
And now I'm back at the prompt asking me whether I have a PSN account or not. A bit confused, I tell it again that I do. Cue the message about needing a firmware update. I'm stuck in a loop.
A quick google shows me that I have to answer "no" and create a temporary account that I use to download the firmware update and then link my "proper" PSN account. At this point, I'm really starting to get quite cheesed off. This is a long way from optimal. But anyway - I follow the instructions and set the firmware update running.
10 minutes later, the machine reboots with its new firmware. Ok, that's about 5 minutes faster than the average PS3 firmware update, but it's still pretty poor.
Ok, so, the firmware's updated and the Vita can access the net through my home network. Time to get the 3G set up. I shut the machine off, insert the Vodafone pay-as-you-go SIM that's included with UK 3G models and fire it back up. There's a nice obvious icon on the start screen to set up the 3G provider, so I tap it.
At first, everything seems to be going well. The Vita opens the Vodafone website and I opt to purchase 10 GBP of credit using my credit card. I note at this point that the web-browser is a bit shit, but in fairness, I realise that the utterly crapulent nature of the Vodafone website isn't helping either.
I fill in the form with my credit card details and tap the button to pay. But what's this? An error - saying that the service isn't available at this time. I try again - same error. I try again with my emergency backup card. Same problem.
So I go to google again. A lot of trawling through the Vodafone forums finally reveals the problem; the SIM won't activate properly if the Vita tries to do its first top-up using wifi rather than the 3G connection. I need to go into the settings menu, disable wifi and then try again. I do so, and am finally able to buy my 3G credit.
Right, now, time to transfer some content off my PS3. I got rid of my old PSP for trade-in credit a few days ago, but shifted all of my downloaded games back onto my PS3, so I could stick them straight onto the Vita. I get the USB connector that came with the Vita and hook th
Nope! Instant deal-breaker right there. Rootkits, OtherOS, awful security practices, and caring more about stopping (and failing to do so, I might add) the piracy boogeyman than not harming their own customers.
Sorry to say, but when they screw their customers over again somehow, don't expect any pity. It's obvious what kind of company they are, and it's at least partly your own fault for continuing to buy products from them.
and one of the big reasons they locked this one down.
That'll totally stop the pirates...
Oh, well. They care more about 'stopping' the big, evil game downloaders (who just copy games and cost them nothing) than they do about not hurting their own customers. They're idiots, but so is anyone who buys their products and then complains. They've had ample time to realize just what kind of company Sony (and probably many more, actually) is.