Sony: Press Conference & Tokyo Game Show

[patsu]

free games are only of value when they are fun to play. Current vita sales speak to that fact

There are fun and highly rated games in PS+, free or discounted.

Current Vita sales may be affected by multiple factors. Fun game alone may not work. Look at 3DS, it needed to drop price to boost its sales. It even drop the 3D display to try to get to the next level. Sony will have to find its own approach. e.g., I see people lamenting about Vita's expensive memory card.

Besides, your original point was Vita needed to be always on, which is wrong. The original Xbox One needed to be always on. Not Vita.

 

[eastmen]

3ds has sold well since its intial price drop. The vita hasn't picked up any momentum

 

[Betanumerical]

What is the source of that numbers?

A guy on neogaf who is part of some big chain of stores

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=592171&highlight=preorder

I think its GAME.

 

[temesgen]

Why would you need Vita to be always online ? That's just nonsense.

I played P3P for hundreds of hours without any network connection, except for looking up tips using the web browser.

Its an argument that has been torn apart over and over, it makes as much sense as arguing that 3DS and VITA aren't really portable bc you have to plug them in to recharge the batteries.

Or Drawing a false equivalence between always on and using services that require an internet connection - online MP, Netflix, Youtube require an internet connection whereas playing games on VITA, PS3, 360 do not. Most people can see that distinction between that an what MS was doing.

My own personal expectation is that remote play works far better at home than it does at Starbucks for example. My own interest in the feature is driven by my desire to play games in more than one location in the house. Getting a few minutes in before bed for example appeals to me. But I can also see how it doesn't gel with other peoples personal preferences. For me flexibility trumps using a big screen TV but again I can see the other point of view and honestly I would not want to game for extended periods of time on my VITA, the DS4 will be much more comfortable.

 

[tuna]

Right now that is the feature for the vita everyone is talking about. There is no hype around the games for the system currently.

Almost everyone who has a Vita loves it. People who have not tried it talks about other stuff than the games available.

 

[Billy Idol]

Almost everyone who has a Vita loves it. People who have not tried it talks about other stuff than the games available.

I agree to some extend. Up to now, the Vita for me was an unwanted item. After buying it for Killzone...I am quite happy with it and am astounded how good the actual gaming experience is (after buying a power grip attachment for my large hands).

The only downside the system has...and it is a quite hefty one imo...is that no internal memory is available, that you need external mem cards, which are quite low in size but still super expensive.

 

[DrJay24]

Vita doesn't sell, check.

Straw man that everyone wants a Vita for PS4 streaming on the Internet, check.

Where is the TGS talk?

 

[BRiT]

Vita doesn't sell, check.

Straw man that everyone wants a Vita for PS4 streaming on the Internet, check.

Where is the TGS talk?

Most likely in an XBox One thread pointing out how doomed Microsoft is.

 

[eastmen]

Vita doesn't sell, check.

Straw man that everyone wants a Vita for PS4 streaming on the Internet, check.

Where is the TGS talk?

Vita was quite a big part of TGS , they gave a live demo of ps4 streaming did they not ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's where this whole line of discussion came from. Vita was demo'd with Remote Play, and did so very well. Unsurprisingingly, there's who like the idea expressed as much, and, similarly unsurprisingly given the nature of the internet, people started making massive generalisations about PS4 fans being Vita fans and 'haters gonna hate' and blah blah nonsense.

As for the TGS talk, there really wasn't much on show. Sony were basically repeating there E3 and GC content for the home crowd.

 

[Wynix]

Vita doesn't sell, check.

Straw man that everyone wants a Vita for PS4 streaming on the Internet, check.

Where is the TGS talk?

Hard to have a talk about something when there's nothing to talk about.

 

[3dilettante]

Have no idea where to put this.

I'll just leave it here:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-mark-cerny-lead-architect-playstation-vita

So Vita is his lead system architect proving ground.

It's interesting to wonder if the discussion of a performance comparison between x86 and ARM stemmed in part because the two architectures were foremost in the mind of the design leadership for both projects.

The reliance on standard architectures as a basis is common to both platforms.
Unified memory is not a shared trait, but pushing the envelope when it comes to memory interfaces is. The stacked memory that brings higher bandwidth shows a design preference for bandwidth over cost savings in that part of a game system, with the Vita's setup also saving power.

It would be interesting to wonder if Cerny ever entertained the thought of applying something like that to a console. Unfortunately, the cost and power realities would have turned that down pretty quickly. Still, the idea of 3D or 2.5D mounting of memory relative to the main chip does have dividends I hope to see in some future GPU or APU.
This upcoming gen may have just missed out on that changeover.

 

[Bagel seed]

Still, the idea of 3D or 2.5D mounting of memory relative to the main chip does have dividends I hope to see in some future GPU or APU.
This upcoming gen may have just missed out on that changeover.

For a brief period I thought it could actually happen, before we knew all the specs for both consoles. Analysts and even former Sony CTO's mentioned it in presentations quite a while back. But from the general sentiment of the state of 3D stacking as of a few months ago, it's more like 2015+ to even be remotely possible and cost friendly in something as mass produced as a console would be for the performance they'd need. Chip testing is still the hurdle. It was never going to happen..

Welp, 1 TB/s bandwidth minimum or bust for next time :smile:

 

[Rangers]

It definitely is them getting the jump on Google, Apple and Amazon, all of which have had rumored microconsole support, and it definitely kicks the stool out from under Ouya, Gamestick and the like which, ironically, have worse indie game support than Vita and nothing but the grey market of emulators to prop them up in comparison. Apple should have opened AppleTV to app developers with an official controller like 3 years ago.

The PS Vita TV looks has a USB port as well, so I wonder if you can even use that for mass storage, or if it's just for Nasne or controller charging/pairing.

Well, maybe Sony needs a new stool, and you can be sure Sony is not even a blip on the big boys of Apple, Google, Amazon's radar, as Vita TV sold just ~5000 in Japan this week (and only 55k so far in a few weeks). http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=728110

I imagine it's DOA everywhere as expected. The Vita itself cant sell, but this was going to take over the world? Even if it was a great idea (it's not) you sort of knew Sony couldn't execute (which started with the whole "Maybe it will come to the west, who knows!" nonsense early on).

 

[baten]

My take on slow Vita sales (I have one btw) is the proprietary format for memory, which adds significantly to the price, plus it's difficult to find (I want a 32Gb and cant find one on local memory shops)