PlayStation Vita

[BreakABone]

Just curious since the device is out in less than 2 weeks, who's interested in it? Anyone picking it up day 1? If not day 1, when?
What games are you getting with it?

[Seth]

To me, it seems like the vita is coming out at a weird hardware loop. Android portables are moving toward epicness and CES was showing some intense processing capabilities.
I'm interested to find out more about the vita since it's got to do something cool besides rehashing exclusive titles.
What are the launch title sellers?

[KillerGremlin]

Yeah, now that I'm a member of the Android club, I take back everything I said about phone gaming. Everyone has a phone, but not everyone has a dedicated gaming handheld. I think gaming handhelds are going to die...or Nintendo is going to start making phones? It might take a while though.

It's hard to believe we have come this far though. What was that terrible piece of shit dedicated gaming phone that came out like a million years ago around the time of the GBA? The N-Gage, I think. Man, that thing was a piece of shit. We've come a long way, baby.

[Jason1]

Until they start making phone with actual buttons, I'll pass on any REAL gaming on a phone. Touch screens suck for gaming. I want a button!

[Ginkasa]

I might get it, but I hardly ever touch my PSP. I'll probably still end up getting it in a few years when the price has dropped and there's a game I must have (not sure what'd it be, though, since Final Fantasy titles were pretty much it for the PSP for me and that franchise is currently making me a sad koala).

[KillerGremlin]

Until they start making phone with actual buttons, I'll pass on any REAL gaming on a phone. Touch screens suck for gaming. I want a button!

I prefer all touch screen or all buttons. I'm not a fan of the mesh of buttons and touch screen...which is what keeps me from really loving some DS games. Either design a game optimized for complete touch interaction, or let me use a dedicated button setup.

The Android phones are sick though. Dual Core processors, lot of memory...and everyone has a phone. You have the full Android market which features a ton of games; and a ton of casual games (which is where the gaming market is really going). Plus your Android device syncs with Facebook, and you can play Facebook games.

I just see the social and casual gaming forces driving gaming towards Android. Why buy a dedicated gaming device? You can even emulate Genesis, SNES, NES, and PSX games on your Android device. I bet you can emulate N64 games too...

It's kind of ironic....Android is like a PC basically...PC killing dedicated handheld gaming...huh.

[TheGame]

I'm a dedicated android fan, but I think iphone has much better content in terms of game applications. The emulation on Android is great though! From a development standpoint I guess iphone is more attractive then Android, but as far as making hardware with the OS.. well we already have Xperia Play from Sony.

It'd be great if Nintendo made a similar thing to Xperia play. It probably wouldn't take too much horsepower for them to remake everything from the N64 generation going back.

As far as Vita goes. I highly doubt I'll be getting one any time soon.

[Neo]

Until they start making phone with actual buttons, I'll pass on any REAL gaming on a phone. Touch screens suck for gaming. I want a button!

I could see them making a controller attachment which fits around your phone. Kind of like your mom fits around my.....

[TheSlyMoogle]

I could see them making a controller attachment which fits around your phone. Kind of like your mom fits around my.....

They already exist, at least for iphone, we sell them at gamestop.

[Blix]

I prefer all touch screen or all buttons. I'm not a fan of the mesh of buttons and touch screen...which is what keeps me from really loving some DS games.


You're weird.
































...that is all.

[KillerGremlin]

I don't think I am. At all. We are kind of veering in that direction, anyway.

Do you have an Android phone? Or an Iphone? And a good one...one of the recent ones.

There's been some cool tech demos of touch screen interfaces. Microsoft Surface is on the horizon in terms of showing up in homes (that shit has been out since like 2007...we are just now seeing widespread touch screen use). I truly believe Android/Iphones will eventually kill laptops. Eventually home computing will be reduced to a central household server, and your phone, TV...and even your walls or windows...will function as input devices. We are getting near that point with cloud computing.

Check this out:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/m5rlTrdF5Cs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Seriously, I enjoyed my DS...but the games that force you to utilize a touch screen and hard controls are just frustrating. I do enjoy the use of the touch screen as an interactive menu. Using the DS touch screen as a menu is a sweet idea. I enjoy using the main screen and standard controls to actually play the game. I dunno.

I'd say we are going to see widespread touch screen implementation within the next 10 to 15 years. You can already sync your phone up to your TV and computer. Pretty soon you will just need a monitor and a cloud server, and you will have a cloud computing system that just talks to your "Computer Screen" or "TV Screen."

It's coming. How will this affect gaming? I dunno. Seems like the big gaming market is casual games like the Facebook games and whatnot. I like Neo's idea of having a controller attachment. There are also on-screen controls for touch-screen devices. The fact is, everyone needs a phone, and the phone markets are saturated with games. It will be interesting to see how that impacts the more niche gaming market.

Edit: I still prefer a controller for 99% of games. You all know that. I'm just saying, this seems to be where the technology is moving. I'm not saying this is my view or this is what I agree with. You can't deny the state of the industry.

[Vampyr]

Touch screens are cool, but I don't think we'll ever go with them 100% for gaming. The tactile feedback from buttons and analog sticks is too important.

[Blix]

I don't own a smart phone yet. But when I get to play games on my friend's phone I can't help but want to use actual buttons. You end up putting your hands in the most weird ways to do what you really want to do, specially if the game uses the movement recognition controls at the same time. This is true when playing games that try to fully realize what consoles already do. There was this airplanes game where you had to tilted the iPhone to move the air plane and tapped a part of the screen to shoot missiles and every time we wanted to shoot something we had to take our hand off the iPhone to tap the screen. Maybe a better button placement would have solved it, I dunno. But so far the games that I have played don't make me believe that touch screens as the only way for input is a good thing. And of course, you're making screen space and input compete, something that shouldn't have to be. On-screen buttons just don't cut it for me. I feel that using touch-screen to complement the actual buttons is the way to go. Of course, this depends mostly on the developers thinking things carefully and the type of game you're playing. But so far, I think developers need to keep improving the ways they implement touch controls into their games.

I'll post more later, if I have the time.

[Seth]

To KG:
I see laptop's staying the same, combing hardware keyboards with touchscreen. Why sacrifice the tactile agility of a keyboard? I personally think tablets are a gimmick that are going to phase out for the tablet/laptop hybrid which will utilize the best of both. More space for processing, and more space for touch-control input. I want to eat messy food with my fingers and not have my screen remind me of my grease-gluttony.

[KillerGremlin]

I'm thinking keyboards and controllers will always be around, but you will see more touch screens. Tablets suck, but a laptop with a fully functional touch screen and keyboard would be cool.

I like my keyboard, but if I could reach up to my computer screen right now and move shit around Minority Report style, that would be bad ass. And I see the tech reaching that level within less than 5 years. Microsoft Surface is basically the launching point.

Blix: I agree, using a phone can be cumbersome if the game is not designed with 100% touch screen controls in mind. But that's my same complaint about the DS. I love the games that commit 100% to the touch screen, or games that commit 100% to the hard controls. I enjoy the middle ground where I can use the touch screen as a menu instead of having to pause the game.

I'm just not a fan of tilting my device as a control scheme. I think it is gimmicky and stupid. I also dislike the "virtual" buttons and virtual directional pad that you see with some Android games. Give me solid buttons 10 days out of the week.

But games that rock cock on the Android devices?

World of Goo:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/flO25LivRrA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I agree that the stylus helps...I actually bought a stylus to play World of Goo on my phone proper.

Cut the Rope:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MvpF0AgkNdQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I see a lot of potential for games like the above. Also Real Time Strategy, I think you could do some cool stuff strictly with touch screen controls. I'm not saying I love touch screen controls exclusively, I don't, I just see this market expanding, and dedicated handheld gaming decreasing.

Unless Sony and Nintendo plan to make phones...

[Angrist]

Cut the Rope is awesome! My brother got that when he was in China. This is the first time I hear anyone else talk about it. I'd say it's right up there with World of Goo and in a way Angry Birds.

Anyway, I touched a PS Vita. Even its rear. The screen is really nice. Sharp and vibrant. I played a level of Little Deviants, which was ok.
But it really got me thinking... what's new here? We've had touch screens for a while, we've had this "I can do everything at once!" thing with the PSP... I was missing the selling feature.

[Vampyr]

Cut the Rope is awesome! My brother got that when he was in China. This is the first time I hear anyone else talk about it. I'd say it's right up there with World of Goo and in a way Angry Birds.

Anyway, I touched a PS Vita. Even its rear. The screen is really nice. Sharp and vibrant. I played a level of Little Deviants, which was ok.
But it really got me thinking... what's new here? We've had touch screens for a while, we've had this "I can do everything at once!" thing with the PSP... I was missing the selling feature.

Pretty sure it's this:

The screen is really nice. Sharp and vibrant.

[BreakABone]

Cut the Rope is awesome! My brother got that when he was in China. This is the first time I hear anyone else talk about it. I'd say it's right up there with World of Goo and in a way Angry Birds.

Anyway, I touched a PS Vita. Even its rear. The screen is really nice. Sharp and vibrant. I played a level of Little Deviants, which was ok.
But it really got me thinking... what's new here? We've had touch screens for a while, we've had this "I can do everything at once!" thing with the PSP... I was missing the selling feature.

It has rear touch!

But honestly, it seems to be Sony selling it on being wonderful tech... which it is.

The problem is in a world of smart phones and tablets, you're going to need something a bit more alluring than that.

[KillerGremlin]

Cut the Rope is awesome! My brother got that when he was in China. This is the first time I hear anyone else talk about it. I'd say it's right up there with World of Goo and in a way Angry Birds.


Yeah, I love Cute the Rope. It's cute, quirky, and the gameplay is amazingly intuitive.

Angry Birds has so many levels (I'm not complaining) that it feels more like a never-ending quest: so a good time killer. Cut the Rope has a ton of levels, but it is more reasonably sized.