There are back and forth arguments that smartphones have killed the dedicated handheld gaming market. The 3DS suffered heavily upon release and many have written off the Playstation Vita as DOA. Splurging $250 on a doomed device would be a fool's errand, right? I can only go off my own experience. I guess I could consider myself a core gamer. I don't game on my iPhone. Everyone I know that plays console games to any degree doesn't either. I'd much rather play on my couch in front of a big ass TV. The bottom line is that devices like the Vita are indeed in the way out if they dintt expand their capabilities... but that's down the road. There is still a viable but shrinking market for dedicated handhelds. So ladies and gentlemen, against my better judgement, I give you the Playstation Vita!!
If I ever buy anything like that, it's because someone finally combined mobile communications, TV, internet, and gaming into a device that looks like my Samsung Convoy, but with a larger display. And no fucking touch screens.
I fucking love my DS Lite. OH had a PSP and it was a piece of shit. I dunno what these use to get the media on the device (I have heard they are going digital only?) but those disks the PSP came with were garbage. And the PSP broke after like a year (DS Lite is several years old and still going strong). My point is I feel like at least part of why the reason the market is drying up is because they are only coming out with shit people don't want anyway. I mean honestly, 3DS? That's the best they could come up with? No thanks. Also I agree with UA. Touch screens are fucking obnoxious. Although I am glad they created this thing if only so that Touch my Katamari could be a thing.
Today was day one out in the wild with it. Not only dies the Vita have a touch screen, it also has a rear touch screen. I actually agree with UA. The main reason I don't like gaming on my iPhone is because the touch controls has no tactile feedback and in the heat if battle, I loose track of my hand/finger placement. Also, my fingers block too much of the action occurring in the screen. The Vita combats this by making touch controls optional. It also has a rear touch pad which I used once today playing Uncharted: Golden Abyss and it's much more enjoyable than I had anticipated. I linked the Vita to my AT&T wireless account and installed a twitter app. I was also able to use an app called "Near." My Vita scanned within a mile of me and at 1 point during the day in The Bronx, it found 150 people playing their Vitas. Not bad for less than 24 hours on the market. I hope this device does well. It certainly deserves to. I'll post some screen caps from my Vita tonight.
Daughter got a 3DS for Christmas. Of course she's gotten everything with the exception of a PS3 and now this. Yea, we spoil her.
Owned a PSP for years and then threw it in the garbage when I got my Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. A few months ago I would have totally agreed with Alphaman. But I have to admit, some of those smartphone/tablet games are insidious in their simplicity and more than freakin' addictive (Where's My Water, Cut The Rope, etc.) I tried playing FPS games on a handheld but never could get used to it.
One is a screencap of my first playthrough of Uncharted Golden Abyss. The second cap is me using the Vita's Near app which scans your vicinity for other people playing their Vitas and shows you their gamercard...So this guy is near my job.
I actually agree with you! There are some games that work very well on small mobile touchscreens. FPS and Third person action games aren't one of them, IMHO. That's where the Vita will find its niche. The argument that casual games are good enough to do away with gaming handhelds is true for the casual audience, but I think there is a significant pool of people that want more from mobile games... and the Vita can do casual too, since it has touchscreens. Afterall, the iPhone 4s has an 8 MP digital camera. No one thinks that cell phone cameras are good enough to kill the digital camera market. For low end/entry level people, yes it is good enough, but there are those that will still want a high end SLR and take the craft seriously. The Vita is the SLR of mobile games.
