My 2 cents on what I'd like to see Sony do to improve the Vita as a whole. All my opinion and no doubt I'll post something completely inaccurate but here goes.
Games
Gran Turismo is a must and is Sony's best earner. The PSP version whilst good wasn't great and lacked any meaningful single player. Create a lite version of GT6 or atleast a new GT that shares functions with the soon to be released GT6 (Shared money, cars, B-Spec etc.).
Killzone's already on its way and looks great. Whilst it's not quite as popular as Microsoft top shooter and CoD it'll still manage to shift a few consoles and lets not forget that it looks to be the best mobile FPS ever so...
Fifa. How about bringing some of the newer changes of the console versions (I don't expect everything given the difference in performance). At least enough parity to make Transferrable saves (cloud saving via PS Plus?) between the Vita and PS3 version. Heck bundle both copies together for an extra tenner on top of the PS3 retail price and I'll get both.
GTA!! I see no other reason for Rockstar not to develop another mobile GTA in the same vain as Liberty City stories and Vice City Stories... Other than the VITA's lackluster worldwide sales. GTA is a system seller and an exclusive title would do wonders for the system. Selling it to Rockstar is the hard part but make reassurances, help fund the project etc. Start making more effort to get 3rd party devs onboard (see below).
As other have also said after Gran Turismo and Uncharted, God Of War is Sony's next big hit. A new game in the vein of the previous PSP versions would be ideal. The multiplayer that Ascension has although a big ask would be perfect for the Vita.
Other sports games such as NBA and NHL etc to satisfy the american crowd, again with cross platform saving so you can continue your season etc. on the go.
More Indie games. I know theres a massive influx at the moment but another couple of older titles such as FTL (Almost perfect fro touch screen gaming) and perhaps a timely release of starbound just to keep the momentum going.
Also where are my RPG's and strategy games? I know FFX/X-2 are coming but it's not enough. A few RPG's that don't look like upressed PSP ports please. Also a couple of strategy games akin to FF Tactics, Jeanne D'Arc and Fire Emblem.
The giant elephant in room is of course Monster Hunter and I have no doubt that Sony is trying it's hardest to get something going. Above are a few games that will help the cause in EU and US territories but things also have to improve in Sonys Homeland and MH will do just that.
Don't give me the same barely upgraded MH that the 3DS is getting. Give me some major improvements. New game engine perhaps? Improved graphics (Sharper, cleaner, improved Geometry, polygon count the lot), Slightly quicker combat, seamless loading between areas, more Monster variation etc... More, more, more! Oh and infrastructure support from the get go. Sony dropped the ball on the importance of MH but will need to do something to gain back support from Japan.
Hardware/OS
I have many issues with the OS and the majority of them stem from the fact that I have mobile phones that are 2 - 3 years old that perform tasks more elegantly.
Friends, Messaging, Party chat and Near (possibly)... Firstly why are these all individual apps? We live in a time where social interaction is at an all time high thanks in main to the internet and the relative ease in which we can communicate through various social sites and applications/software, so why is it so damn disjointed? Better yet rather than one all singing and dancing app how about it actually being integrated into the OS?
How about instead of swiping up and down to go through various pages filled with bubbles we swipe to the right to find our friends list? From here we can select either individual users or multiple users and send invites to party chat or send messages etc. Check each others games cards ad activities and Send and receive gifts via Near. How about we highlight a user and are greeted with icons asking us how we like to communicate? If we'd like to send and tweekt for exaple or post a message to there facebook wall. So much needs to be done to make cocialising on the Vita less of a chore. I don't want to wait for individual apps to open every time I want to send/receive a message I just want to hit the PS button during a game and slide accross to my social section to see messages and reply etc. (Sorry for repeating myself I little it's just so frustrating).
How about adding a little more functionality to the lock screen? Make it scrollable and add many more notifications such as messages and email etc readble to some extent. Post game notification or replys to when certain highscores have been beaten. Do more!
Also I'm not a massive fan of the bubbles, but atleast add some AA. And while you're at it get rid of the 10 app per page limit reduce the size of the bubbles and make it 12 apps per page (3 rows of 4). Oh and don't forget to increase the 100 app limit.
From a hardware perspective I keep hearing how powerful the system is yet I'm very dissapointed in the amount of sub-native res games. Not too mention the lack of any kind of decent amount of anisotropic filtering. Were given this great OLED screen that spends the majority of it's time displaying under par blurry visuals. Perhaps this is down to budget and time constraints since developing games on the Vita will not doubt be considered a risk. In any case Sony need to do something too make sure more games are htting native res at least.
The system (or rather a revision now) needs Flash memory of some kind. not a lot but just a little something fora few games, game saves and also to act as a buffer for streaming apps such as youtube (Can't watch HD videos or lengthy videos if your memory card is low on space). Again the caching of websites in the browser is a little of (most likely tied to memory card space) and I have many issues whilst trying to brose whilst ingame or rather in when I've left my game in a suspended state.
Since I mentioned save games a quick note so that we can better manage them without having to back them via content manager would be nice.
The triggers/shoulder buttons are a little too squidgy and could do with a little with an improvement (Not a mjor concern just thought I'd chuck it in here since I'm ranting a little).
The price of the memory cards is daylight robbery and they need reduced. I'm still yet to see a valid and proven reason for proprietary memory cards other than Sony trying to make a few extra bucks. If it's for security reasons which has been speculated on before then I call horse as the 3DS uses microSD and I've yet too see anyone using them as a backdoor to hack it.
Sony in general
Marketing, or rather lackoff. The majority of folk I know that own a PS3 don't even know the thing exists andhow should they? Other than a piss poor ad that had folk floating around (In the UK anyhoo) where are the TV adverts? Where are the outdoor ads on Bus Stops billboards etc.?
Sony's advertsing especially for games is poor and has been for years. It's the one are where Micorsoft and Apple have got everything nailed down.
This isn't just aimed at the Vita but also the PS3. I hope more is done to market the PS4 and 1st party games but I'm forever doubtful. More needs to be done especially if they want to increase product awareness and improve sales.
Relationships ith 3rd party devs in terms of the Vita need to improve. I know it hard to sell an underperforming handheld right now but If they don't then why bother? It'll be as good as dead in a years time. It may be a catch 22 situation but Sony need to more to create some buzz for the Vita. Help with funding and development isn't ideal but it will be required to bring system sellers to the VITA especially to gain sales momentum if at all possible. Whilst CoD was a rush job imagine how good it could have been if more time and effort went into it.
How about reaching it out too more IOS developers also? The hardware isn't all that different from most Apple products on the Market. How about better pricing for games that are also available on the AppStore/Play Store? Why is the Vita version of Plants Vs. Zombies more than double the price of its smart phone variant? I know they are making strides with Inide devs but there is still more that can be done.
The PS Store has been revamped on the PS3 (painfully slow though) and now has a web based store is there an update coming to the Vita store, as it's in desperate need of an update?
I'm still unsure on PS Mobile as a platform and whether or not resources could be better spent elswhere. That's not to say there aren't some great games on it but how about removing some of the limitations and allowing devs to publish these titles in the store as normal? Perhaps allow for more network functionality (leaderboards, online multiplayer, Async. etc.) and perhaps a limit of around 3 or 5 trophies etc. as a better incentive to buy them. Allow this functionality to be allowed via playing from your smartphone also. Lastly for it to be a viable platform it needs more exposure outside of the PS Blog. An increase in phone compatibility is also required. Only having it available on Sony smartphones and selected HTC smartphones is useless.
Anyhow I'm gonna stop for now as I feel like I'm ranting a bit now and although I could still say a lot more I've lost any semblance of structure in my post. In saying that though do note that I have a lot of positive things to say about the Vita I just haven't got the time to detail them. As an example there are some amazing games on the system (I have around 20 or so ad I'm still looking to pick up a few more), and services such as PS+ only help to improve the experience for current owners. The waiving of the PS Mobile fee, again whilst I'm still not sure on the service os great for everyone regardless on your thoughts. The device itself is well crafted, stylish and just plain gorgeous to look at. The hardware is impressive for the most part and I'm looking forward to the remote play capabilities in connection with the PS4 upon its release.
So like anything whilst it's easy to pick apart problems and issues bear in mind that in this day and age we're spoilt with the capabilities of smartphones and smart thinking app developers etc. that make many of our daily tasks that little bit easier and more vonvenient. Allthough this makes it easier to point out it's shortcomings it isn't a phone at the end of the day and it does have many positives, mainly the fact that (again IMO) the hardware gives it the potential to be the best handheld gaming device there has ever been.
A few improvements here and there to help sell the sytem to others and to improve the experience of current owners is no doubt on the cards. yet with the games I've bought so far I think I've justified my purchase and that's all that matters at the end of the day.
p.s. Apologies for the wall of text, spelling, grammar and the structure of my post, it's a bit late here on this side of the world.
Games
Gran Turismo is a must and is Sony's best earner. The PSP version whilst good wasn't great and lacked any meaningful single player. Create a lite version of GT6 or atleast a new GT that shares functions with the soon to be released GT6 (Shared money, cars, B-Spec etc.).
Killzone's already on its way and looks great. Whilst it's not quite as popular as Microsoft top shooter and CoD it'll still manage to shift a few consoles and lets not forget that it looks to be the best mobile FPS ever so...
Fifa. How about bringing some of the newer changes of the console versions (I don't expect everything given the difference in performance). At least enough parity to make Transferrable saves (cloud saving via PS Plus?) between the Vita and PS3 version. Heck bundle both copies together for an extra tenner on top of the PS3 retail price and I'll get both.
GTA!! I see no other reason for Rockstar not to develop another mobile GTA in the same vain as Liberty City stories and Vice City Stories... Other than the VITA's lackluster worldwide sales. GTA is a system seller and an exclusive title would do wonders for the system. Selling it to Rockstar is the hard part but make reassurances, help fund the project etc. Start making more effort to get 3rd party devs onboard (see below).
As other have also said after Gran Turismo and Uncharted, God Of War is Sony's next big hit. A new game in the vein of the previous PSP versions would be ideal. The multiplayer that Ascension has although a big ask would be perfect for the Vita.
Other sports games such as NBA and NHL etc to satisfy the american crowd, again with cross platform saving so you can continue your season etc. on the go.
More Indie games. I know theres a massive influx at the moment but another couple of older titles such as FTL (Almost perfect fro touch screen gaming) and perhaps a timely release of starbound just to keep the momentum going.
Also where are my RPG's and strategy games? I know FFX/X-2 are coming but it's not enough. A few RPG's that don't look like upressed PSP ports please. Also a couple of strategy games akin to FF Tactics, Jeanne D'Arc and Fire Emblem.
The giant elephant in room is of course Monster Hunter and I have no doubt that Sony is trying it's hardest to get something going. Above are a few games that will help the cause in EU and US territories but things also have to improve in Sonys Homeland and MH will do just that.
Don't give me the same barely upgraded MH that the 3DS is getting. Give me some major improvements. New game engine perhaps? Improved graphics (Sharper, cleaner, improved Geometry, polygon count the lot), Slightly quicker combat, seamless loading between areas, more Monster variation etc... More, more, more! Oh and infrastructure support from the get go. Sony dropped the ball on the importance of MH but will need to do something to gain back support from Japan.
Hardware/OS
I have many issues with the OS and the majority of them stem from the fact that I have mobile phones that are 2 - 3 years old that perform tasks more elegantly.
Friends, Messaging, Party chat and Near (possibly)... Firstly why are these all individual apps? We live in a time where social interaction is at an all time high thanks in main to the internet and the relative ease in which we can communicate through various social sites and applications/software, so why is it so damn disjointed? Better yet rather than one all singing and dancing app how about it actually being integrated into the OS?
How about instead of swiping up and down to go through various pages filled with bubbles we swipe to the right to find our friends list? From here we can select either individual users or multiple users and send invites to party chat or send messages etc. Check each others games cards ad activities and Send and receive gifts via Near. How about we highlight a user and are greeted with icons asking us how we like to communicate? If we'd like to send and tweekt for exaple or post a message to there facebook wall. So much needs to be done to make cocialising on the Vita less of a chore. I don't want to wait for individual apps to open every time I want to send/receive a message I just want to hit the PS button during a game and slide accross to my social section to see messages and reply etc. (Sorry for repeating myself I little it's just so frustrating).
How about adding a little more functionality to the lock screen? Make it scrollable and add many more notifications such as messages and email etc readble to some extent. Post game notification or replys to when certain highscores have been beaten. Do more!
Also I'm not a massive fan of the bubbles, but atleast add some AA. And while you're at it get rid of the 10 app per page limit reduce the size of the bubbles and make it 12 apps per page (3 rows of 4). Oh and don't forget to increase the 100 app limit.
From a hardware perspective I keep hearing how powerful the system is yet I'm very dissapointed in the amount of sub-native res games. Not too mention the lack of any kind of decent amount of anisotropic filtering. Were given this great OLED screen that spends the majority of it's time displaying under par blurry visuals. Perhaps this is down to budget and time constraints since developing games on the Vita will not doubt be considered a risk. In any case Sony need to do something too make sure more games are htting native res at least.
The system (or rather a revision now) needs Flash memory of some kind. not a lot but just a little something fora few games, game saves and also to act as a buffer for streaming apps such as youtube (Can't watch HD videos or lengthy videos if your memory card is low on space). Again the caching of websites in the browser is a little of (most likely tied to memory card space) and I have many issues whilst trying to brose whilst ingame or rather in when I've left my game in a suspended state.
Since I mentioned save games a quick note so that we can better manage them without having to back them via content manager would be nice.
The triggers/shoulder buttons are a little too squidgy and could do with a little with an improvement (Not a mjor concern just thought I'd chuck it in here since I'm ranting a little).
The price of the memory cards is daylight robbery and they need reduced. I'm still yet to see a valid and proven reason for proprietary memory cards other than Sony trying to make a few extra bucks. If it's for security reasons which has been speculated on before then I call horse as the 3DS uses microSD and I've yet too see anyone using them as a backdoor to hack it.
Sony in general
Marketing, or rather lackoff. The majority of folk I know that own a PS3 don't even know the thing exists andhow should they? Other than a piss poor ad that had folk floating around (In the UK anyhoo) where are the TV adverts? Where are the outdoor ads on Bus Stops billboards etc.?
Sony's advertsing especially for games is poor and has been for years. It's the one are where Micorsoft and Apple have got everything nailed down.
This isn't just aimed at the Vita but also the PS3. I hope more is done to market the PS4 and 1st party games but I'm forever doubtful. More needs to be done especially if they want to increase product awareness and improve sales.
Relationships ith 3rd party devs in terms of the Vita need to improve. I know it hard to sell an underperforming handheld right now but If they don't then why bother? It'll be as good as dead in a years time. It may be a catch 22 situation but Sony need to more to create some buzz for the Vita. Help with funding and development isn't ideal but it will be required to bring system sellers to the VITA especially to gain sales momentum if at all possible. Whilst CoD was a rush job imagine how good it could have been if more time and effort went into it.
How about reaching it out too more IOS developers also? The hardware isn't all that different from most Apple products on the Market. How about better pricing for games that are also available on the AppStore/Play Store? Why is the Vita version of Plants Vs. Zombies more than double the price of its smart phone variant? I know they are making strides with Inide devs but there is still more that can be done.
The PS Store has been revamped on the PS3 (painfully slow though) and now has a web based store is there an update coming to the Vita store, as it's in desperate need of an update?
I'm still unsure on PS Mobile as a platform and whether or not resources could be better spent elswhere. That's not to say there aren't some great games on it but how about removing some of the limitations and allowing devs to publish these titles in the store as normal? Perhaps allow for more network functionality (leaderboards, online multiplayer, Async. etc.) and perhaps a limit of around 3 or 5 trophies etc. as a better incentive to buy them. Allow this functionality to be allowed via playing from your smartphone also. Lastly for it to be a viable platform it needs more exposure outside of the PS Blog. An increase in phone compatibility is also required. Only having it available on Sony smartphones and selected HTC smartphones is useless.
Anyhow I'm gonna stop for now as I feel like I'm ranting a bit now and although I could still say a lot more I've lost any semblance of structure in my post. In saying that though do note that I have a lot of positive things to say about the Vita I just haven't got the time to detail them. As an example there are some amazing games on the system (I have around 20 or so ad I'm still looking to pick up a few more), and services such as PS+ only help to improve the experience for current owners. The waiving of the PS Mobile fee, again whilst I'm still not sure on the service os great for everyone regardless on your thoughts. The device itself is well crafted, stylish and just plain gorgeous to look at. The hardware is impressive for the most part and I'm looking forward to the remote play capabilities in connection with the PS4 upon its release.
So like anything whilst it's easy to pick apart problems and issues bear in mind that in this day and age we're spoilt with the capabilities of smartphones and smart thinking app developers etc. that make many of our daily tasks that little bit easier and more vonvenient. Allthough this makes it easier to point out it's shortcomings it isn't a phone at the end of the day and it does have many positives, mainly the fact that (again IMO) the hardware gives it the potential to be the best handheld gaming device there has ever been.
A few improvements here and there to help sell the sytem to others and to improve the experience of current owners is no doubt on the cards. yet with the games I've bought so far I think I've justified my purchase and that's all that matters at the end of the day.
p.s. Apologies for the wall of text, spelling, grammar and the structure of my post, it's a bit late here on this side of the world.
W2 on the Vita in EU/US?
