Didn’t even know about it.
I might have liked to play gravity rush on mine. With a dual shock 4 there is absolutely no reason every single vita game should not work on the pstv.
That’s an easy one: because the DS4’s touchpad isn’t going to let you play a game like DJ Max Technika TUNE, or any other game that needs position-accurate touch inputs, or multitouch with more than two points. Or, y’know, a camera.
Not if you don’t care about remote play. Or downloading from PSN. Or anything else that requires you to update to 3.55.
Like me.
[buys]
As mentioned over in the bargain thread, ZHP is on sale for three dollars this weekend. Go go go!
Great news for Vita owners like me: 3rd party support for the Vita has been so amazing that Sony has no more big first party titles in development for the Vita.
Canuck
1866
So glad I traded my PSVita for a New Nintendo 3DS earlier this year.
RickH
1867
Sad, but I’m not surprised. The Vita’s market size likely can’t justify AAA development, and Sony has already repurposed Gravity Rush and Tearaway as PS4 titles (perhaps to help them pay for themselves?). Wouldn’t be surprised to see the Uncharted, Killzone, or Wipeout Vita games re-done the same way to shore up the PS4’s anemic first-party lineup. The Resistance FPS was not worth a port.
That said, I don’t think the Vita’s strength was retail release, multi-gig, long play-session titles anyway. Smaller, shorter, BC, or cross-buy stuff is what makes the platform worthwhile (to the extent gamers do find it worthwhile). I’d much rather play a game on a Vita with reasonably standard controls rather than on a phone with virtual buttons. Only a handful of games are actually better with touch controls, and the Vita can handle those as well.
red_guy
1868
They could have ported the PS2 library, with the backside touchpad emulating L2 / R2. I would play the snot out of portable Yakuza 1/2, Gran Turismo 4 and Psychonauts.
Also, until I clicked that link, I was wondering, how is that news? They said the same during last year’s E3. Then I saw that the keyword in the article’s title is “reaffirms”, so this is non-news. I feel click-baited.
Superbeat: Xonic came out yesterday. New Vita rhythm game from the former DJ Max developers. Touch or gamepad controls, and playable on PlayStation TV. It’s probably really good stuff! Unfortunately, I can’t tell you for sure on this one because Amazon is screwing me over on shipping, trying to tell me it’s going to take eight business days to move a small package between two cities that are two hours apart by car. Good job, guys!
While Sony is slowly holding a pillow over the Vita’s face and telling it, “Shhhh, no more tears, only dreams” I have picked it back up and decided to play a lot of games I have accumulated over the years from the Plus program or sales purchases. Also my gaming time is really limited so Vita games have been working really well with my schedule in contrast to these behemoth RPGs like Fallout 4 or Dragon’s Dogma that I keep starting and then realizing my life is not well suited to the 100+ hour epics anymore.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss has been occupying 3.5 GB of my Vita’s precious memory card space for a couple of years now. Being a huge Uncharted fan I decided to dive in and enjoy a more intimate experience with Drake and friends. Playing Golden Abyss is like stepping into an alternate world and seeing what it would have looked like if the Vita had a larger install base and big publishers supported it with AAA-comparable releases. U:GA has best-in-class musical score and voice work. Utterly phenomenal and able to stand proudly shoulder to shoulder with its brothers on the PS3. Wearing headphones while playing this was a real treat. This is also the first game that had me taking screenshots on the Vita to capture the lush sunset vistas, the cascading azure waterfalls, and the wide shots of glistening caverns with veins of gold while Drake descended a rope. This game took full advantage of all of the Vita’s features for good and ill. At its best the game implemented a wonderful aiming system that utilized both the right analog stick and the motion controls/gyroscope of the system. I would aim down the sight of my weapon and use the right analog stick to do the gross motor aiming (getting the reticule near an enemy) then I would naturally switch to tilting the Vita for finer controls to line up those deadly headshots. The dual control scheme worked so well once I dialed in the settings that it will be hard to play other console-based shooters without second layer of gyroscopic aiming. At its worst you could tell that the development team had a mandate from Sony to fully utilize ALL features of their slick new Vita console so the game continually had me swiping across the front screen to complete annoying QTE sections, do “charcoal rubbings” of statues, or rub grime off of relics. Other gimmicks had me holding my Vita up to light sources, rubbing my finger along the back touchpad, tapping icons on the screen, fondling it, stroking it, giving it deep tissue massages, and all that good stuff. Too many gimmicks were built into this flagship title that was forced to showcase all that the Vita could do.
Starting with U:GA I know that I began my Vita journey on the peak of production values and will be descending a mountain from this point forward, but that is OK. This brought back cherished memories of playing the magical Uncharted 2 all those years ago. Some people ding the Uncharted series for their lack of player choice and for their propensity to hold the player’s hand and create “artificial” moments of tension while climbing and I don’t begrudge them their grievance. However, I love the laser-focused authored experience with a traditional narrative arc. Being so linear allows the team to pour their creativity, skill, and production values into every moment no matter how small. This is an aspect that is out of favor now in the current market of open-world procedurally generated games with wide expanses of digital landscape to fill.
If you own a Vita and picked this up when it was in the Plus Instant Game Collection or can find a physical copy for cheap I would recommend the experience. If only to see how powerful the Vita’s CPU and graphics processing is and what a big budget title looks like on a modern handheld. Push through the annoying touchscreen features and bask in a really well-made game. Playing U:GA on a Vita illustrates very clearly how impoverished and threadbare phone/tablet gaming really is. There is no comparison.
Also if you are someone that loves collectibles and secrets this game is chock full of them. So many that I mostly gave up looking for them about halfway in since that became distracting to the main course.
-Todd
Here’s a good place to put some good news: Walmart has PlayStation TV bundles (system, Dual Shock 3, 8GB memory card, and vouchers for The LEGO Movie Game and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time) for $44. (Bad news: you can’t play Uncharted: Golden Abyss on it.)
Alstein
1872
Is that online only or offline as well?
Is it this SKU because that shows “Item No Longer Available”. Maybe in-store only? Hell of a deal though if you can get it. Thanks for posting it WarpRattler.
-Todd
Playstation TV? It should totally play Vita carts and PSN games offline, just like a Vita. (My guess; I don’t have one.)
Grand Kingdom
Interesting looking tactical RPG coming out for Vita and PS4 in June. Directed by Tomohiko Deguchi of Muramasa: The Demon Blade fame.
You’ll be fighting on lane-based 2D levels where each unit acts in turn, but their turns play out as real-time movement limited by an Action Gauge similar to Valkyria Chronicles.
-Todd
Thraeg
1876
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/02/08/shiren-the-wanderer-launches-july-26th-on-ps-vita/
The DS version would comfortably make my all-time top 10, so I’m very glad (and a bit shocked) to see this series getting another chance in the west.
Yeah, the DS remake of the SNES game is amazing. This is based on a different version of the game (that one was tuned to perfection), though, so I’m excited but cautious!
I will buy Grand Kindgom, no doubt about that. It looks exactly like Valkyria Chronicles meet Yggdra Union.
I’ll be all over Shiren 5 PSV, if it actually makes it over here.
Downwell just got announced for PS4/Vita as well. Vita seems like the ideal platform for that game.
I picked up one of those $44 PSTV bundles at my local Walmart last night, since they still had plenty of them in stock. Brought it back to my girlfriend’s house, set it up, went to go download some games from my giant download list…and was told I already had three Vita-family devices activated on my PSN account. I have no idea how that one happened, considering I only owned a Vita and a PSTV until last night.
I haven’t contacted Sony customer service yet, but given the horror stories I saw while looking around for any potential fixes, I’m not expecting much from them. Worse, the only remote deactivation option Sony offers on the customer end deactivates all PlayStation devices, so unless they can selectively deactivate devices from their end, I’m going to have to put in even more work if I want to make my new device usable.
