Playstation Vita

[NoiseHERO]

Spoilers: Augmented Reality sucks.

I can imagine most of the games on it being kind of lame and boring or halfassed. And it's pretty obvious how it works.

But I still think it's a really cool concept that could possibly change gaming in the future.

Like imagine they had playgrounds similar to that mario bro's playground that they had set up before mario 3DS's launch. Or if they had events for certain games in general where it's like....

You have your game and characters that you normally level up, and it'd be like a scavenger hunt all over the city where you look for items in treasure chests and bosses. And you can run into other people taking part in the same event. So it's like making an RPG game, but the setting is real life... Or course people coud vandalize the cards/landmarks.

Or it could be like some kind of videogame play ground/park and everyday they have different AR's sitting around. Or they could do something cool like... make a pair of glasses that has a camera in it that reads Augmented Reality cards n stuff. I dunno it's simple and a lot of things that use it isn't all the amazing. But it brings up a lot of cool ideas. Not just 3DS, iPod and Vita but in general.

Things like that would be cool. And make gamers go outside... and people can play real life Final Fantasy and look 30% less retarded or something, I dunno.

[drizzle]

I can imagine most of the games on it being kind of lame and boring or halfassed. And it's pretty obvious how it works.

But I still think it's a really cool concept that could possibly change gaming in the future.

Yeah it's a cool concept but this implementation just doesn't work.

For one thing the camera isn't good enough. It needs more light than you have in the average living room, especially in winter, or you just get a dark blurry mess as your game background. And if you play outside, well, like the poster before you mentioned, the screen's a bit reflective so it gets hard to see when the sun is shining.

And for the Vita to recognize the AR cards you need to be fairly close to them as well (about 1 meter in my experience). If I put the cards on the floor, and try to play AR games standing up, it just tells me 'out of range'. It's very uncomfortable to play like that. Bigger cards might solve that, but, only these small ones are included.

[Keilyn]

I am not interested in it.

I just don't see it competing with Tablets and Smart Phone gaming. Not to mention the way online-gaming is highly restrictive on Console handhelds. Also, I hate the idea that if new handhelds are released, it becomes a risk to backwards compatibility.

Finally, the majority of the time I play a handheld would be when I am on an airplane flying from one country to the next. Even so, My tablets have Console and Handheld Emulators that run flawlessly.

Like I've said in the past...

"I can count the number of people I've seen in airports and airplanes with just my left hand fingers who own console-handhelds...Everyone else owns a Tablet or Smart Phone"

So when I see whatever chart that says the latest Nintendo or Sony Handheld made "record breaking sales" I tend to say "maybe in Japan, but they won't admit that the major market share is on smart phones and tablets over there" and I hardly see them over here.

College Gaming club has 104 members. Its pretty large and only six of them play handhelds, the rest of them (including me) play Consoles and/or PCs.

[Mustache]

I really like my Vita, I was an early signer on the system with my pre-order for the 3G system. With the cost of the memory sticks for the system this one seemed like a no-brainer. Unfortunitly Sony decided not to give any bonuses to those of us that picked up the system early, AT&T offered a free month of 3G after you purchase the first month and a free down load of Super Stardust Delta(A game rated highest on the system at a 9.5). As it turns out you can not get the redemption code until your first month of 3G is over. Having to wait a full month before getting to play the game that was used as a reward for early signers to the system. This was annoying, extremely annoying, as I and most others that got the 3G had to purchase the game to play it, and sit on this redemption code, so basicly, we were offered nothing that looked like something in the form of this game. Regrets of signing on early are definite.

After that bitter taste from above left my mouth I was able to enjoy my handheld. And I do enjoy it, alot. The shear fact that can can put fully functional non-dumbed down versions of games onto the systems is awesome. It hasn't left my living room all too much but I want to play it. The games for the Vita aren't 'on the go games' and I actively choose to play my Vita over my 360 often. The games are full games, that you'll want to play, at home or on the go.

[Sexy_Raine]

Not enough games for it right now. I'm very interested in Gravity Daze though. Hopefully Ys Vita game comes to NA.

Hopefully after E3 I'll decide whether to get one. I really hope Sony keeps the multiplayer shooter deathmatch BS away from it. Keep that shit on 360.

[NoiseHERO]

Yeah it's a cool concept but this implementation just doesn't work.

For one thing the camera isn't good enough. It needs more light than you have in the average living room, especially in winter, or you just get a dark blurry mess as your game background. And if you play outside, well, like the poster before you mentioned, the screen's a bit reflective so it gets hard to see when the sun is shining.

And for the Vita to recognize the AR cards you need to be fairly close to them as well (about 1 meter in my experience). If I put the cards on the floor, and try to play AR games standing up, it just tells me 'out of range'. It's very uncomfortable to play like that. Bigger cards might solve that, but, only these small ones are included.

Sounds less disappointing than when I tried it on my iPod. D:

Guess it'll just stay a gimmick for a while, then.

[Mustache]

Yeah it's a cool concept but this implementation just doesn't work.

For one thing the camera isn't good enough. It needs more light than you have in the average living room, especially in winter, or you just get a dark blurry mess as your game background. And if you play outside, well, like the poster before you mentioned, the screen's a bit reflective so it gets hard to see when the sun is shining.

And for the Vita to recognize the AR cards you need to be fairly close to them as well (about 1 meter in my experience). If I put the cards on the floor, and try to play AR games standing up, it just tells me 'out of range'. It's very uncomfortable to play like that. Bigger cards might solve that, but, only these small ones are included.

I had the problem of getting two #04 cards and no #05 card with my Vita, I contacted Playstation Support and they sent me a link where I can download the cards in PDF and just print them out. You can play around with it a bit, zooming in and printing for a bigger card. Hope this helps.

http://us.playstation.com/psvita/app...ta-app-ar.html

[Akaimizu]

An interesting concept. Though not as well implemented as the 3DS. However, what AR kind of needs is the right idea to actually make a great AR application. Most of these are little distractions that could just as easily be done without the real-world stuff.

I still think the 3DS demos look a lot better and not just for the 3D (though it helps). Part of it is that the camera picks up light a lot better, and it is more convincing of an effect when they did it. When using it on a table, it is a lot more convincing a look as if your table has a door in it that flips around to reveal the world inside the table. It's almost seamless. Even the warping effects to make your table appear as if it is suddenly liquid and such, work well. The Vita demos, on the other hand, look a lot more plastered on and not convincing that it is part of the table but graphics floating on top of the table. But that's more of a case of software and a camera that seems to require more light for that software.

[Atbar]

I plan on passing on the Vita. I haven't been happy with how Sony handles handhelds.

[Kent]

I tried one in Target, and again in Best Buy.

While it's certainly an improvement over the PlayStation Portable from a usability perspective (I still maintain that the reason the PSP's battery is such a piece of crap is because they don't want players playing long enough so that their hands cramp - which they inevitably do, every time I try to play it), the buttons are nice and clicky rather than the mushy PSP nonsense, and the screen is nice and bright...

The analog sticks are terrible - there's basically no travel to them on top of having no resistance, it's almost impossible to hold it anywhere between neutral and max, so trying to control magnitude of them is an exercise in futility. It's also impossible to hold comfortably without resting your fingers across the rear touch panel, which is just a major ergonomic design flaw.

I tried playing the Wipeout demo, and not only could I fall asleep in the time it takes to load a single race, the all-or-nothing nature of the analog sticks made it so I pretty much had to either go straight or veer sharply into a wall. It's obviously (at least) partially due to the analog sticks being terrible, but I was very unimpressed with the game. It's too bad Nintendo has their heads up their asses and is focusing their racing budget on Mario Kart instead of a good game like F-Zero, because they could easily blow this thing out of the water if it was like GX.

Overall, it's certainly an improvement, but there are definite problems with its design. I'm actually surprised how much of an improvement it is, just for how comfortable it is to use - considering that Sony has been using basically the same uncomfortable form-factor for their console controllers since they got into the business in the first place. I'm not very impressed with the proprietary memory cards though - especially since they're required and roughly twice as expensive as an equal-capacity SD card.

Personally, I wouldn't buy one. Not until a major price drop, anyway - and even then, probably not until custom firmware is available and I can play Tyrian on it.