Seven things to love about PlayStation VitaBy Winda Benedetti
I have to admit, I’ve been a bit skeptical about the PlayStation Vita.
Though Sony’s forthcoming handheld machine — the successor to its PlayStation Portable — comes with a whole lot of power under the hood, a 5-inch OLED touchscreen, full traditional game controls as well as touchscreens on the front and back … I’ve wondered if there is still room in our lives for a portable gadget that’s dedicated to gaming.
So many of us have smartphones in our pockets and they play games well enough, right? Do we really want to fill our pockets and our purses with yet another device? Would we really drop hundreds of dollars on this thing? It’s not like the PSP sold gangbusters here in the U.S., and even Nintendo’s 3DS sales are struggling in the age of the iPhone and iPad.
But at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this week, I’ve finally had a chance to get my hands on the Vita and play several of the forthcoming games, and I’m happy to say my time with the machine has wooed me to the ranks of the Vita hopeful. Here are some of the reasons why I think there’s plenty of room for Vita in our lives:
The screen
Scott Rohde, Sony Worldwide Studios vice president, gave me a personal look at video playing on this baby’s 5-inch OLED screen and let me say, it looks sharp. “What I always tell people is, I dare you to find a poor viewing angle,” he said. “You’re not going to find one.”
And I have to agree with him. I tilted that sucker to and fro like you might when you’re on the go, and it looked crisp and clear at all angles. The thing is, that 16:9 screen comes with 960-by-544 pixel resolution, which means the game graphics look absolutely lovely and really do deliver that console-level appearance.
The weight
Looking at the photos Sony initially released showing off Vita, I had expected it to be this bulky, heavy gadget. And measuring in at 7.2 inches by 3.3 inches by 0.73 inches, it’s not a small thing. But get your hands on Vita and you’ll be absolutely shocked at how light it is. Sony has not revealed its official weight but I can say that despite its larger dimensions, you won’t hesitate to toss it into your backpack.
The back touchpad
I have to confess, I was having a hard time making sense of the back touchpad. Since nothing like it has appeared on a game machine before, it was difficult to imagine how it might come into play in a game and why I should care. But after playing Vita games like “Little Deviants” and “LittleBigPlanet Vita” I had that “OK, now I get it!” moment. In the "Little Deviants" collection of mini games, there’s a level in which you must roll a ball-shaped creature around a landscape and into a hole. To roll him around, you touch the back touchpad which makes it so you appear to push the landscape on the screen upward. Trace your finger around that back panel and the landscape rises into a hill, shoving the ball around.
Similarly, play the “ModNation Racers” game that’s in the works for Vita and you'll be able to quickly create mountainous terrain for your racetracks by simply pressing on the back of the screen.
It is a seemingly simple thing, but the more I played around with games that are implementing this back touchpad, the more I could see just what a smart, fresh idea it is and just how it really will unlock some unique new gameplay experiences. (Check back for my hands-on look at “LittleBigPlanet Vita” and “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” for more on this.)
The dual thumb sticks: Avid gamers have been waiting a long time for this — a handheld game machine that offers two thumb sticks. And at long last they will get them with the Vita. And after playing the gadget, I can say that Vita’s more traditional game controls — the directional buttons, action buttons, shoulder buttons, the two sticks — are tight and precise and do offer that traditional controller experience gamers have been longing for.
Cross-platform gaming: I think this is one of the most exciting aspects of the Vita — the way it will work in conjunction with the PlayStation 3, offering all kinds of cross-platform play.
For example, Sony revealed that Vita owners will be able to play the forthcoming “Wipeout 2048” racing title live online against people playing the game on their PlayStation 3s. As for the forthcoming action role-playing game “Ruin,” you’ll be able to play it on your Vita, pause your game, save it to the cloud, go home and pick it up on your PS3 right where you left off. That is awesome.
Meanwhile, when Sony ships “ModNation Racers” for the Vita, you’ll immediately be able to take the racetracks you created in your PS3 version of the game, import them to Vita and play them on the new handheld device. And the next “LittleBigPlanet” will have content sharing between the home console and the handheld as well, Rohde told me.
Look, the future of gaming is this: Having the ability to play the same game on whatever game machine you happen to have with you at the time. And Vita takes a giant step in that direction.
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for more and some links to see demos....
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