The Playstation Vita Catch-All

ahrezmendi wrote:

The times mine has locked up I've just had to hold the power button. I've never had to remove all the accessories. This taught me to shut the Vita down once a week, it seems to want a break periodically. Considering my phone does the same thing, as did my iPhone, I'm not upset about this. These devices are not meant to be on 24/7.

Ditto. Very informative response, I know.

Every time the, the Vita isn't doing well topic comes up, I get depressed. Then I remember how it gave me one of my best gaming years ever, last year. Then I get over it. True story!

Boooooooooo. That's too bad.

So what's everyone been playing recently on it other than lets fish, I need a new game for it feel.

thinkklinck wrote:

So what's everyone been playing recently on it other than lets fish, I need a new game for it feel.

After finishing Ni No Kuni coming out, I decided to jump into Jeanne D'Arc, and I'm now convinced that I need to go back and seek out more Level 5 games. Having only recently taken an interest in JRPG/SRPGs, I get the feeling that the games from Level 5 are worth revisiting.

I'm also pleasantly surprised to find that I'm digging the game for its game play too. Reading the JRPG catchall, it seems I have a huge number of games to keep me busy in the PSP catalog.

I'm still plowing through Persona 4 Golden. I'm at 67 hours now, have 5 social links at Rank 10, many others between 6 and 9, and I just hit 10/21. I'm hopeful I can max all the social links this game, but it'll be a close shave if I do. Once I'm done with that, I might just dive right into a 2nd play through, or I'm considering breaking to try New Little King's Story.

I find it crazy that I, having never EVER been been able to get into mobile gaming, am obsessed with my Vita and play it constantly, and yet it is having so much trouble getting a foothold in the market. Are we that niche? :/ I wonder if a nice stream of HD remasters like MGS would do gangbusters for holding over the Vita AND the Wii U for the kind of market they initially attract until they get their new games rolling out consistently.

I'm well and truly convinced that it's the price. I know I held that wasn't a factor before, but I was wrong. The market has proven time and again that the same game is what people want, so the issue isn't that the Vita has lots of ports/remasters. Hell, Wind Waker HD is now one of the most hotly anticipated Wii U titles, so that tells you something. It's really that $250 price point, so I guess what it comes down to is not that we're so niche, it's that we're so wealthy.

Or at least that's the way I'll think about it.

Now that I'm playing it, the new Sly Cooper is fantastic. If you're a fan of the series or platformers in general, this is probably a good game to pick up.

When you compare the price of the Vita to similar devices like iPods or iPads its price is fair but I guess compared to other gaming consoles it's a bit pricey.

I bought it at launch and still think it was tremendous value

Finally upgraded from 4GB to 32GB last weekend. Now that I have space for it along side Gravity Rush and P3P, DJ Max Portable 3 is all I can be bothered to play. It wouldn't even let me transfer my save over from my PSP, but I'll grind my way through it anyway.

interstate78 wrote:

When you compare the price of the Vita to similar devices like iPods or iPads its price is fair but I guess compared to other gaming consoles it's a bit pricey.

I bought it at launch and still think it was tremendous value

But the Vita is really mostly useful for games, whereas an iPad has multiple uses. People will compare the Vita to the other handheld out there, which is cheaper!

ahrezmendi wrote:

I'm well and truly convinced that it's the price. I know I held that wasn't a factor before, but I was wrong. The market has proven time and again that the same game is what people want, so the issue isn't that the Vita has lots of ports/remasters. Hell, Wind Waker HD is now one of the most hotly anticipated Wii U titles, so that tells you something. It's really that $250 price point, so I guess what it comes down to is not that we're so niche, it's that we're so wealthy.

Or at least that's the way I'll think about it. :D

I know that I personally really want a Vita, but I don't want to pay $250. I'd be much more willing to pull the trigger if it were cheaper.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I don't regret buying my Vita, and I'll keep playing it for years to come, but I would have preferred it do better and it's upsetting that it could have done better if Sony had acted differently.

Agreed. While I'd like to see new, grandiose Vita IPs released to take advantage of the system, I'm just as happy for the smaller "arcade" titles or re-releases. I'd love to see more PS1/PS2 games touched up and released so I could have the chance to play them this time (portable). I'm also sure to support current games like Zen Pinball and Super Stardust Delta (which I am in love with) I am anxious to see the future releases of Rocketbirds and the Capcom Arcade suite.

There is plenty out now and coming soon that will occupy us for years to come, but I'd feel much better about the extended lifespan of this product (re-releases, patches, OS updates) if the sales weren't in the toilet.

There's definitely a lot to play on the system. Looking at my dashboard I have 14 Vita titles, 5 PSP titles, and 4 PSOne Classics, and I don't have everything I own installed. Sure some of those are upgrades of older games (Metal Gear HD, Disgaea 3, P4G) but that just means they're portable and have more content, which I call a win. Then there are the unique ones I have (Ragnarok Odyssey, PSABR, Lumines, Hot Shots Golf, LittleBigPlanet) which are all great fun.

I've certainly bought consoles for less in the past (N64, which I bought exclusively for Ocarina of Time), so I'm very pleased with the Vita. I really hope Sony can turn things around and convince some 3rd party publishers to get on board. If they can't, at least get Santa Monica to make a God of War game for it, 'cause Ghost of Sparta was super fun.

I hadn't thought about the Vita memory prices until recently, and wow, I'm still really irked by them.

So for my 3DS, I recently (as in this week) purchased a high-end 32GB SDHC card (since Nintendo didn't pick a proprietary format) so I can stick with digital purchases for the most part.

Knowing that I want a memory card that's going to last long-term, I basically went with the luxury vehicle of SDHC memory cards, buying one of the higher-end brands that are a go-to product for photographers: a Lexar Professional class 10 SDHC memory card. Ran me just shy of $50, whereas you can get run-of-the-mill 32GB SDHC cards for around $20 if you're willing to take a risk on reliability.

In comparison, on my Amazon recommendations, the PS Vita 32GB memory card showed up, and I had forgotten how insultingly expensive it is: $90 Amazon price, $100 standard price.

So yeah... Sony is still charging roughly double the price of what it cost me to buy the same amount of memory from the Porsche equivalent of SDHC cards. Dammit Sony, wtf is wrong with you?

Farscry wrote:

So yeah... Sony is still charging roughly double the price of what it cost me to buy the same amount of memory from the Porsche equivalent of SDHC cards. Dammit Sony, wtf is wrong with you?

This is basically the main issue. Sony has spent the last 7 years frittering away a huge lead in the market. This trend won't likely stop until they really get their act together.

I completely forgot Sly Cooper was a thing on the Vita, next purchase. haha

Have any developers of the cross buy games ever stated how difficult it is to port from the Vita to the PS3, or vice versa?

The reason I ask is, would it be completely unreasonable for Sony to require all PS4 games to have a Vita port with Cross-Play/Save/etc.? If making a port was cheap enough, could it happen?

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Have any developers of the cross buy games ever stated how difficult it is to port from the Vita to the PS3, or vice versa?

The reason I ask is, would it be completely unreasonable for Sony to require all PS4 games to have a Vita port with Cross-Play/Save/etc.? If making a port was cheap enough, could it happen?

Might be that one of the things that Sony is working on in the PS4 architecture is making that kind of porting easier.

Yes, that would be completely unreasonable. They can make it as easy possible, and strongly encourage it, but the moment they require a second version of a game from a third party is the moment they cede more third party support than the PS4 can afford to spare.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Yes, that would be completely unreasonable. They can make it as easy possible, and strongly encourage it, but the moment they require a second version of a game from a third party is the moment they cede more third party support than the PS4 can afford to spare.

I think calling it completely unreasonable is....completely unreasonable. I would instead call it highly unlikely. If the burden on the developer is low, then it is certainly possible. It all depends on how easy they make it for a third party to conform. Unfortunately, that's something not many of us can accurately gauge yet. Perhaps the next version of Sony's tool chain will make it easy to build a PS4 and Vita version from a single code base. Maybe they will offer support to offset the extra cost of testing and distributing the Vita version. As always, the limiting factor is the cost. The more they require of a developer, the more they will have to offer in exchange for those requirements. I'm not sure the Vita is popular enough for that kind of compromise to benefit either Sony or their partners.

That said, I think it's more likely that they will either push more developers to consider remote play, or build support it into the console. It wasn't a big part of the PS3, but I'm sure they've now got access to some talent via Gaikai that they likely tapped to make remote play a bigger deal with the next console. Nintendo's already shown that streaming a game to a hand held is possible. I think that Sony is in a good position to perfect it, especially if rumors of touch technology in their controllers is true. I'd personally prefer this approach for the simple fact that in the scenario where both versions are run natively, the PS4 version would likely suffer due to the 'least common denominator' factor that cross platform developers have run into forever.

I could see a slightly modified version of the console experience brought to the handheld. I am looking at Lego LOTR for an example of this. The Vita version lacks the whole open world concept between levels that exists on the PS3, but they have the same episode content. I could see them existing with a shared save existing on the cloud where you can unlock level content on the go with the Vita then return home to explore on your PS4.

The other concept is a pairing a function of the game to a handheld that isn't as demanding of the hardware. I have always wanted a way to play a JRPG on a console but have the ability to grind my characters on the handheld. This way I can maximize the value of the time spent on my console by doing the grinding busy work while commuting or waiting in the lobby of my doctor.

There is no limit to the dollar amount I would bet against Sony requiring Vita ports of all PS4 games. I would bet every money.

Remote play is an odd proposition. I don't want to speak out of turn, because I'm totally unclear on how it works, but here goes: if they handle Vita/PS4 remote play like the Wii U, where you use both interactively to play a game, I would be tentatively interested. If it's just playing a PS4 game on my Vita, that's not really something I see myself using. No reason not to just play it on my TV if I'm at home, and remote play outside of the house is almost a total nonfactor because it requires a wifi connection.

More importantly though, the importance of the second screen will almost never be as important as it is with the Wii U. That's just how it goes with games that require peripherals, and the Vita is a damned expensive add-on.

Maybe they go all out and bundle the handheld with the PS4, but I don't see it happening. Hopefully we'll get some idea of their direction on February 20th.

Blondish83 wrote:

I could see a slightly modified version of the console experience brought to the handheld. I am looking at Lego LOTR for an example of this. The Vita version lacks the whole open world concept between levels that exists on the PS3, but they have the same episode content. I could see them existing with a shared save existing on the cloud where you can unlock level content on the go with the Vita then return home to explore on your PS4.

The other concept is a pairing a function of the game to a handheld that isn't as demanding of the hardware. I have always wanted a way to play a JRPG on a console but have the ability to grind my characters on the handheld. This way I can maximize the value of the time spent on my console by doing the grinding busy work while commuting or waiting in the lobby of my doctor.

Some of that happens already, and it hasn't caught on in a big way. You can transfer all your stuff back and forth from the Vita and PS3 versions of MLB 13: The Show (unfortunately I can't stand the actual game), and you will be able to use the same character data on Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on Wii U/3DS. Phantasy Star Online 2 will supposedly let you play your account on both Vita and PC.

I wonder if you might see something like a free Vita app that lets you level your familiars in Ni No Kuni. Nintendo's done some experimentation like that, with the Pokewalker a few years back and Pokemon Dream Radar last October. I think that kind of development is nontrivial though, which is why Nintendo has charged a bit for each (the game that came with the Pokewalker was $5 more than most DS games, Pokemon Dream Radar cost $3).

Blind_Evil wrote:

There is no limit to the dollar amount I would bet against Sony requiring Vita ports of all PS4 games. I would bet every money.

Remote play is an odd proposition. I don't want to speak out of turn, because I'm totally unclear on how it works, but here goes: if they handle Vita/PS4 remote play like the Wii U, where you use both interactively to play a game, I would be tentatively interested. If it's just playing a PS4 game on my Vita, that's not really something I see myself using. No reason not to just play it on my TV if I'm at home, and remote play outside of the house is almost a total nonfactor because it requires a wifi connection.

More importantly though, the importance of the second screen will almost never be as important as it is with the Wii U. That's just how it goes with games that require peripherals, and the Vita is a damned expensive add-on.

Maybe they go all out and bundle the handheld with the PS4, but I don't see it happening. Hopefully we'll get some idea of their direction on February 20th.

Oh, I'm sure there's a limit on the dollar amount, but I agree that it's unlikely they'll require anything of the sort. I'm suggesting, however, that with the PS4 Sony is positioned to make it much easier for ports to happen. Even if that means 1/2 the games, that still a deal more than we're seeing now.

As for remote play, that's how it works on the PS3, but I don't think it needs to work that way on the PS4. I was trying to draw a parallel to the Wii-U. The arguments you just made are pretty much exactly what we all heard about the Wii-U when it was revealed, but it's turned out to be a bigger deal people were willing to give it credit for. The latest conference call had mail that echoed what I've heard a lot lately - being able to continue playing a game when you're kicked off the console/TV/whatever for some reason is a juicy proposition for a lot of people. It's not going to appeal to everyone, but if they can provide the right features, they would certainly get my attention. As for the cost of the Vita, I'd say it's not far off from matching the price Nintendo's asking for their tablet if it's bought separately. I wonder if we'll see any PS4 packages that include a Vita along with the standard controller.

We'll find out soon I hope!

Christ, this blizzard must have driven me stir-crazy. I used the word important three times in one sentence. Ick.

By the by, Nintendo isn't selling Wii U Gamepads separately yet. My point is more this: developers (usually first party, but alas) can do a lot more with the Gamepad if they know every customer will have one because they don't need to worry about splitting their potential market. If every PS4 doesn't come with a Vita, it can't possibly have the same impact. And if the controller rumors are true, why would they need both the screen on the controller and the Vita?

Blind_Evil wrote:

Christ, this blizzard must have driven me stir-crazy. I used the word important three times in one sentence. Ick.

By the by, Nintendo isn't selling Wii U Gamepads separately yet. My point is more this: developers (usually first party, but alas) can do a lot more with the Gamepad if they know every customer will have one because they don't need to worry about splitting their potential market. If every PS4 doesn't come with a Vita, it can't possibly have the same impact. And if the controller rumors are true, why would they need both the screen on the controller and the Vita?

I hear you, that's totally valid. What I'm thinking is that if the controller rumors are true, it's possible that whatever functionality they build into it could also be used on the Vita. My point on this isn't that the developers would do more with anything - I think that Sony alone could provide a lot of added benefit to the consumer without requiring the devs to do anything. Sony seems to be positioning the Vita/PS as a matched set. They will have to do something to bring more value to the Vita, and building automatic support in would be a very effective way to do it. I agree that the more they ask of the devs, the less we'll see things like that happen. But if it's all just part of the echo system, horray for us!

Valkyrie Chronicles 2 and it's DLC is $15. Worth it?

I'm going to buy that, so can someone run me through the process of moving stuff onto the Vita through the PS3 that I can't download directly onto the Vita? RNG?!