Sony's NeoGeo Pocket's (PSP2/Vita) business/non technical ramifications talk

[patsu]

I don't know man. Without a TV out, do you think Sony will invest a lot in Vita movie playback ?

 

[Arwin]

I don't know man. Without a TV out, do you think Sony will invest a lot in Vita movie playback ?

They already announced a separate presentation of media functionality. I expect the current PSP features including Qriocity and Digital Comics at the very least.

 

[temesgen]

I don't know man. Without a TV out, do you think Sony will invest a lot in Vita movie playback ?

If Sony somehow releases the PSV without proper codec support they should lock up the development team for cruel and unusual punishment AND unpardonable stupidity. You can't put a beautiful screen like out there and just tease us....

 

[patsu]

Yeah, Qriocity, Hulu, Vudu type of commercial movie playback will be there since they make money for Sony, and are implemented by the providers.

I doubt free movie playback will be more comprehensive than PSP or DLNA. The DLNA specs include some baseline codec support:
http://www.dlna.org/industry/why_dlna/key_components/media_format/

I am more curious about HTML5 media.

 

[patsu]

For what it's worth, there was a YouTube video showing Vita UI in action. It seems that you could pan vertically from the main screen showing running apps. It also showed a video player app. The look reminds me of the theater in PS Home but more static/baked. Doubt it supports watching video with friends,

 

[patsu]

Vita does Yurop this autumn ?
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/45026/Sony-to-launch-PSVita-at-Games-Media-Awards

 

[temesgen]

For what it's worth, there was a YouTube video showing Vita UI in action. It seems that you could pan vertically from the main screen showing running apps. It also showed a video player app. The look reminds me of the theater in PS Home but more static/baked. Doubt it supports watching video with friends,

As long as we get decent codec support I'll be happy.

 

[Npl]

recent bluray players from sony are pretty complete in terms of codec support (probably TVs aswell), so I hope the Vita will have no problem playing avi, mkv and mp4.
It doesnt seems they will ever port back their obviously existing code for PS3 and PSP though...

 

[patsu]

For what it's worth, there was a YouTube video showing Vita UI in action. It seems that you could pan vertically from the main screen showing running apps. It also showed a video player app. The look reminds me of the theater in PS Home but more static/baked. Doubt it supports watching video with friends,

The video was taken down earlier. It's up again:

 

[patsu]

4Gamer attended the Game Tools & Middleware Forum in Tokyo:
http://www.4gamer.net/games/032/G003263/20110630101/

Face tracking in Vita text chat tech demo. We saw an earlier example on PS3.

Other PS3 and PSP info regarding Vita AR, PSP Engine, etc. in the link. The article is in Japanese.

 

[patsu]

Sony: PS Vita our most dev-friendly platform yet:
http://www.develop-online.net/news/38183/Sony-PS-Vita-our-most-dev-friendly-platform-yet

“In a sense, Kutaragi was enjoying challenging game developers,” said Yoshida.

“He was especially challenging the top programmers in the world to come up with something amazing to make use of the performance of each iteration of the PlayStation platforms.

“That was very good – it was great – for the teams with engineers who liked the challenge, but the world has now changed, and today there is a much larger community of developers,” added Yoshida.

“The focus has shifted to be less about getting the most out of the hardware, to be about having a very smooth production process. That’s because now it involves so many more people to make one game.”
The Sony executive added that the shift of focus was particularly relevant for those third-party publishers which are charged with making sure developer’s games work across multiple platforms.

“Development efficiency has become more and more important,” said Yoshida.
The SCE WWS head was not the only Sony senior to make clear to Develop that relative simplicity of development has been a core focus in creating the Vita.

“When it comes to ease of development, the Vita is a platform with which we’ve been very mindful of that,” stated Michael Denny, senior vice president of SCE Worldwide Studios.
“In terms of smoothing the development process, certainly what the Vita offers is close to that of the PSP, and with some of the help we’re giving to developers, I would say it is the easiest and most well supported platform yet.

“In terms of performance, and the graphics power and programmable shaders and so on, what you can get out of it is far closer to PS3. It’s a great contrast of ease of development to the output you get from the system.”
WWS CTO Richard Lee confirmed Denny’s assertion that ease of development was fundamental to the Vita’s design.

“We made every effort to make it as easy as possible,” said Lee.
“I think we took the experiences from PS3, and decided that we wanted to go out there with a great developer environment that is compatible with the third party tools that developers normally use.

...

 

[patsu]

Gamesindustry.biz interview Shuhei. Not much surprises here except for some more behind the scene details:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-07-08-sonys-shuhei-yoshida-interview

Although Kaz Hirai set out to have the Worldwide Studios group part of the hardware development team from the beginning, I wasn’t sure how the hardware guys would react to that. But I quickly found that the people in Japan didn’t really want to - it’s not like they didn’t want to talk to us - but the fact was they didn’t know who to talk to. There has to be certain secrecy in development process and they also know game creators are different, each individual person has different opinions. So they cannot talk to just one person. I acted the role of looking at the hardware issues they are looking at and then recommend or connect them to the right groups in the Worldwide Studios teams. If it's about the choice of camera then you should talk to London Studios because they have been instrumental with PSEye development, for example.

So I did that role while development teams formed into work groups and begin looking at projects. We got those teams to not just write up their impressions and feedback, but also create something tangible so that SCEI people would not only listen to what the development team said, but also feel why developers wanted certain features.

 

[patsu]

A close look at the new Vita UI. It's quite cute. They should refine the color scheme and surface the community element more. Having your friends sneak up from the bottom of the screen looks fun but I also need an overview and dedicated sections to interact with them:

I also hope Sony use the back and front touch panel for keyboard input.

 

[ban25]

I don't know man. Without a TV out, do you think Sony will invest a lot in Vita movie playback ?

For what it's worth, the dev units have HDMI out. I'm sure Sony could add it, but it's probably a cost issue. Wait for the 2nd rev, I suppose.

 

[patsu]

I reckon Arwin got it right. They want you to copy the movies to other playback devices.

For streaming, one of the Sony Vita slides has the DLNA logo. It's probably a given that Vita can be a DLNA media controller. DLNA server and player capability are unconfirmed at this point.

One of the biggest factors for me is the PS Suite direction ( What is it ? Does it include a run-time to allow iOS developers to release their games for Vita on day one, etc. ). Also please please get rid of NetFront web browser and support WebKit 2 or Mozilla instead.

 

[patsu]

A valid perspective on Vita:
http://kotaku.com/5824805/the-risk-of-ignored-excellence-threatens-the-playstation-vita

...

About a year ago, however, as I was marveling over the then-prototype Nintendo 3DS, I realized I'd all but ceased playing DS games. My PSP rested in a perpetual state of powerlessness. I'd gotten an iPhone, discovered the joys of listening to podcasts (shout out to the audio version of the PBS News Hour!) and stumbled across the fact that a man can listen to chattering about video games, pro wrestling or This American Life in his ears while playing the thinking man's Tetris, Drop 7—all on his iPhone—and pretty much fill his subway ride up. The DS stayed in my bag. A year later, the 3DS stays in my bag too.

I really should go back to Ghost Trick or play some more Professor Laytons, but it took me a year to find the time to play through the last DS Zelda and the most recent DS Mario & Luigi. And I loved those games... just not as much as I loved staying informed by listening to the News Hour.

...

The pocket test used to matter for portable game machines, but so too did the the flight test. Could a DS or PSP hold enough battery juice to last a cross-country flight? I don't think my 3DS can, but I don't know if I'll ever test it because I'm perpetually re-running that experiment in 2011 on my portable TV/book/comic/gaming device called the iPad. Planes were my favorite place for binging on handheld games. Not any more.

...

As an avid gamer I'm familiar with the concept of ignored excellence. Any of us who play games surely are. We find a game we love, a game we know is wonderful but that we also know is being shunned. We shake our heads at the fools who don't recognize the glories of the games we play. We might deride their ignorance or their bad taste, but in a generous moment we might consider that they don't have room in their life to learn just how superb our favorite hidden gem is. I've had this experience with games many times before, but never with gaming hardware. I've also never had this feeling about myself, never knowingly been that guy who was doing the foolish ignoring of something great, the guy who didn't have room in his life for excellence. With the Vita, the amazing, amazing Vita, I fear I may be that guy.

I've played the Vita twice. I love the machine and I do have some jackets with big pockets, but I don't see a Vita-shaped hole in my life.

It needs to at least outdo iPad in entertainment. I took both iPad and iPhone to Europe. Once we got used to iPad gaming, we don't want to game on iPhone anymore. The pad has a nice large screen, and significantly longer battery life. Gaming on iPhone is somewhat stressful because I always watch the battery life. The small screen also makes gaming a little uncomfortable. It's fine for small games, web surfing and listening to podcasts. Arguably these activities take time away from gaming. Nonetheless, it can't compete with iPad once my family find a few addictive games that run on both the pad and the phone.

Similarly, Vita will needs its own "mission in life". It also needs a noticeably better (or more cool) gaming experience than iPad. The social networking services is a start but not enough to take on iPad's ecosystem at the moment. May be dual sticks will appeal to some gamers, but not for consumers at large.

 

[ban25]

For me, the PSP is a home console for lower budget, but fun RPGs. Most recently, I finished Final Fantasy IV Complete on the system. I definitely don't travel with it or take it on the train. That's what the iPad's for. And the iPad has some great games...currently I'm enjoying Final Fantasy III on it. I hate to be pessimistic about the Vita, but without video out, I just don't know when I'd ever use it.

 

[patsu]

Yap, Sony should zero in on iPad for S1, S2 and Vita. If they can offer a compelling entertainment experience beside iPad, they should do well.

Meanwhile, PS Vita's Activity "possibly" for PS3:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-27-ps-vitas-activity-possibly-for-ps3

"We're thinking about it," said Phil Rogers, manager of Sony Europe's R&D efforts, at the Develop 2011 conference.

"Possibly, but if you think of the XMB interface: how do you represent that there?

"But we're thinking about it and it's a feature that a lot of developers and publishers asked for it because it's really useful to keep that whole [game] discussion [going]."

Vita's community services include Near, LiveArea, Party and Activity. They only mentioned Activity for PS3 above. IMHO, they should offer a more seamless stack.

e.g., On the PS3, LiveArea should be activated when the game disc icon is highlighted. Right now XMB will only launch a custom wallpaper and music when "hovering" over the icon.

Activity should be part of the "What's New" sections. In fact, they should build a sorta "Activity HQ" inside PS Home since all the talkative and energetic PS3 users are there. We will have tons of user generated events on PSN and the web. It should also show extensive analytics to ourselves (e.g., trophy analysis, preferences, link to our own web page represented as a Home space/apartment extension, etc)

Near and Party should be rolled seamlessly under the Friends icon. This will allow us to group my friends, and discover more.

In the reverse direction, Home and the XMB chatroom should be ported over to Vita. The XMB chatroom is a very unique concept. It allows an infinitely large presence like GAF to be in XMB without us maintaining a list individually. We kinda grow this list/presence together organically by forwarding the chatroom link to anyone. I should be able to form a party from my friends list _and_ ad hoc friends in the room.


EDIT: It may be important to port Near to PS3 because it would provide the base to jumpstart the experience quickly. Without PS3, Sony will have to build the Near experience from zero base. With PS3 Near, we can gift items from PS3 to Vita and vice versa, as new Vita users wander around.

 

[boommoob1]

Vita's not a tablet. Sony will be looking to emulate the DS's success. The PSP was abandoned by Sony to prop up the ps3. SCEI is now functioning as a normal company again. Media, analysts, you will soon realise they're talking bunkum about the mobile space .

 

[Arwin]

Vita's not a tablet. Sony will be looking to emulate the DS's success. The PSP was abandoned by Sony to prop up the ps3. SCEI is now functioning as a normal company again. Media, analysts, you will soon realise they're talking bunkum about the mobile space .

I think actually above all, Vita wants to take in all the lessons learnt from the original PSP, which has to be considered a success for the company despite its shortcomings. It does so by taking on board some of the things it lacked versus its own vision (dual analog sticks to allow high-end portable versions of console originals), some of the things it lacked versus its competitors (innovative controls that take advantage of the device's portable nature, versus the DS originally and the iOS devices later), and some lessons from the PS3 (day one services support is important), while maintaining some of its original strengths (a great screen, lots of graphical prowess, good multi-media features).

There is no question it will have stiff competition in some of its aspects which of course overlap with phones, pads and pods, but at the same time I think it may have surprisingly little competition in the hardcore gaming space. I think Sony has a good opportunity here.