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

[patsu]

Need to play with it myself. Not a fan of the look & feel, but it looks functional enough.

Official Vita details here:
http://scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/110914a_e.pdf

Talks about launch games, prices, battery life (3-5 hours), and other info.

EDIT:
PlayStation Vita Capable Of Multi-tasking, Open Web Browser During Games:
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/09/1...-multi-tasking-open-web-browser-during-games/

PlayStation Vita will allow you to listen to music while you view photos on the device. Like the Nintendo 3DS, you’ll also be able to boot the device’s web browser up during games.

You can use your PlayStation Network account on your Vita. It will allow you to view your PlayStation 3 Trophies on the device.

Not sure how Transfarring works. We have to buy 2 copies of the same game at full price ? That doesn't sound attractive at all.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Vita's launch line-up seems as strong as 3DS' first whole year of titles.

Had Sony allowed a dual-bood for Android and I'd be all over it on day one.

 

[patsu]

Yes, when they can sell Vita for a profit and Playstation Suite is mature and established so they can earn from both.

EDIT: Wait, I actually like 3DS's selection better.

 

[wco81]

Memory card prices announced, they're roughly 3 times what an SD card would cost.

Battery life is 3-5 hours. So much for getting rid of the UMD to get better battery life.

DD games aren't going to sell well with those storage prices but Sony has to recoup the hardware costs from that $250 price some how.

If mobile devices haven't killed the dedicated gaming handheld, they've seriously hobbled the latter by forcing it to costly design decisions in an effort to differentiate.

 

[boommoob1]

Memory card prices announced, they're roughly 3 times what an SD card would cost.

Battery life is 3-5 hours. So much for getting rid of the UMD to get better battery life.

DD games aren't going to sell well with those storage prices but Sony has to recoup the hardware costs from that $250 price some how.
If mobile devices haven't killed the dedicated gaming handheld, they've seriously hobbled the latter by forcing it to costly design decisions in an effort to differentiate.

No that's Sony being Sony . Was the original Vitas price going to be closer to $400 judging by the peripherals prices?. Cant see how this product will be a success. $36 for a docking station.

 

[Sigfried1977]

The pricing on the proprietary memory cards stinks. The rest is hardly a surprise, though. From my experience with the original PSP and the PSP 3000, the impact of the UMD drive on the system's battery life was actually fairly minimal. Same with the Wifi option. Screen brightness, built-in speakers and the internal clock frequency had the biggest impact by far.

I'm just hoping it'll actually last 3-5 hours. After all the 3-5 hours my 3ds is supposed to last have turned out to be 2 - 3 hours in non-Nintendo time. (and it's not just me)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Am I right in thinking there's not even a smidgeon of Flash on the Vita for game saves, and if a game doesn't support saving on its own card, you have to add an overpriced SD card to save onto?

 

[Arwin]

Am I right in thinking there's not even a smidgeon of Flash on the Vita for game saves, and if a game doesn't support saving on its own card, you have to add an overpriced SD card to save onto?

That's what it looks like to me too.

As for UMD-less not mattering - that's not my experience. Playing from memory card really seemed to extend the average lifespan by about 30%.

Are these Sony Memory Cards as we've seen in the original PSP or something new? If it is the same, I can understand it to some extent, but at the same time that means I can also buy sandisc cards. I do agree that it is a little bit shame that they don't support something else - was quite happy that my Cybershot DSC WX10 supports Flash HD cards as well.

On the other hand, they could have some kind of security mechanism built in. In that case it is definitely understandable that they want to try to plug that particular hole, as we know it was a gaping one in the PSP. In that case we can thank the pirates for having to pay the piracy tax again.

It's 3-5 hours without using WiFi. That means that the battery can be dead pretty quickly (2 hours for playing a top game online). This is a worry for me, because the battery in there is built-in now, which probably means we can no longer easily replace it - at best we may be able to use one of those portable battery chargers that were invented because the iPhone has a crap battery too.

Now for the better news.

1. The Vita is confirmed to be able to act as a regular controller. The front and back touch panels can be configured to work as L2/L3/R2/R3.

2. From the looks of things (there is a Killzone 3 demo) and by extension, Vita will be able to do full remote play for all games (except perhaps a few Move titles, though in theory even that could be possible - just not useful). I didn't know this, but the PSP could in fact do remote play with all games as well. It was just locked out for games that didn't support PSP's limited controls. There are actually hacks that enable it for GTA4 for instance.

3. An SDK is out there for developers to support the Vita as a controller '+', sending the PS3's image also to its screen, giving the Vita a different view, or do other Wii U type stuff. This was shown with LBP2.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Are these Sony Memory Cards as we've seen in the original PSP or something new?

MemoryStick? I'd have thought they'd be named as such if not something new.

It's 3-5 hours without using WiFi. That means that the battery can be dead pretty quickly (2 hours for playing a top game online). This is a worry for me, because the battery in there is built-in now, which probably means we can no longer easily replace it - at best we may be able to use one of those portable battery chargers that were invented because the iPhone has a crap battery too.

If it's built in, what happens when you hit the half-life and get nearer one how? That'd be decidedly rubbish.

1. The Vita is confirmed to be able to act as a regular controller. The front and back touch panels can be configured to work as L2/L3/R2/R3.

That's cool.

 

[wco81]

Well with that battery life, controller might be a good use for it.

Heard it takes 3 hours to charge.

 

[patsu]

1. The Vita is confirmed to be able to act as a regular controller. The front and back touch panels can be configured to work as L2/L3/R2/R3.

2. From the looks of things (there is a Killzone 3 demo) and by extension, Vita will be able to do full remote play for all games (except perhaps a few Move titles, though in theory even that could be possible - just not useful). I didn't know this, but the PSP could in fact do remote play with all games as well. It was just locked out for games that didn't support PSP's limited controls. There are actually hacks that enable it for GTA4 for instance.

Yeap... RemotePlay KZ3 is so pretty !

Hope it plays as well.

I think they need to package the RemotePlay better this time. Today, PS3 can be restarted into RemotePlay mode remotely if it's off. However if the PS3 is already on (e.g., in XMB or running GT5 B Spec), you can't get the PS3 to enter RemotePlay mode at all. They should fix this.

WAN RemotePlay is nice for getting PS3 to download or update remotely but it's less critical if I have Playstation app and cloud media from phones (via SEN ?).

3. An SDK is out there for developers to support the Vita as a controller '+', sending the PS3's image also to its screen, giving the Vita a different view, or do other Wii U type stuff. This was shown with LBP2.

Yap ! Finally some details about Playstation Suite. ^_^
I'm a little surprised by their approach. Still chewing on it at the moment...

 

[Arwin]

Well with that battery life, controller might be a good use for it.

Heard it takes 3 hours to charge.

The PDF posted earlier says around 2:40 for a full recharge.

 

[patsu]

... which is one of the key reasons I think pad is more threatening to dedicated consoles. ^_^

Does Vita has a user controlled power management feature ? I think on PSP, Sony restricts the developers from maxing out the CPU right ?

 

[patsu]

Better look at KZ3 RemotePlay:

Sony should make Vita a universal game controller... like make RemotePlay server work on PC as well, so people can game away from their PC and other consoles.

I think RC robots and vehicles may work too, with the help of an adaptor. They can use the OLED screen to show robot-mounted cameras if they want.


EDIT: Make an app on Vita so that you can assign gestures and buttons anyhow you want !

 

[patsu]

Yoshio Matsumoto talks multitasking, privacy, memory cards and more:
http://andriasang.com/comy7s/

Impress Watch has posted a lengthy interview with Sony Computer entertainment development head Yoshio Matsumoto. The interview touches upon many of the technical issues surrounding PlayStation Vita.

...

PlayStation Vita was developed with multitasking in mind. Because of the high degree of network integration with the device, Sony felt that multitasking would be particularly important.

The game operation space and general application space are separate. In general, applications can be made to run simultaneous with a game. Applications include things like clients for Twitter, Near and the web browser.

...

The system's web browser is Webkit based. Asked about Flash support, Matsumoto said "At the present time, I will give a No Comment."

...

This isn't actually part of the Matsumoto interview, but Impress Watch noted in its writeup that Sony had demonstrated during its keynote address yesterday how the Vita can be used as a remote play device to play back recorded videos from PS3's torne DVR kit. Torne is scheduled to be given an update in December. It's likely that the update will add in the Vita support.

...

the system has privacy settings, allowing you to make your information public to friends, friends of friends, everyone, and so-forth. It seems that you can also make game specific settings -- like telling the Vita not to let people know you're playing certain games.

...

The reason Sony used Vita specific Memory cards instead of the generic options offered for PSP is because of security concerns.

...

 

[Brad Grenz]

Am I right in thinking there's not even a smidgeon of Flash on the Vita for game saves, and if a game doesn't support saving on its own card, you have to add an overpriced SD card to save onto?

I think it's likely the language used in the data sheet was only there for edge cases like an MMO coming out that required additional storage for patching. So fretting about it is like fretting about needing a hard drive for a PS2 when nothing but FFXI needed it.

 

[patsu]

Hm ? There is no built-in end user Flash space for Vita right ? If the game needs to save states, it will need to save onto the game card itself, or a secondary flash storage.

 

[wco81]

"Security concerns" is euphemism for DRM?

Or for high-profit margins?

Or both?

 

[RudeCurve]

Dang those proprietary memory card prices suck. I wonder why they didn't just use Memory Stick?

 

[Brad Grenz]

Hm ? There is no built-in end user Flash space for Vita right ? If the game needs to save states, it will need to save onto the game card itself, or a secondary flash storage.

Other than whatever the firmware lives on and the settings are stored to, yes. But the whole philosophy behind the game carts is they have save/patch partitions by default. I don't expect not being able to save directly on the game to be a common issue.