On Feb. 22, the future of Sony’s gaming strategy will be in consumers’ hands.
That day marks the North American release of the PlayStation Vita, Sony’s first handheld game system since the popular PlayStation Portable (PSP) came out in 2004.
The $249 Vita will arrive in a world where smart phones and tablets are rapidly displacing handheld consoles as the younger generation’s gaming platform of choice. When the device was released in Japan last week, Reuters reported that it sold 321,400 units in two days – a healthy premiere, but less than Nintendo’s 3DS did in its first two days. That may give Sony executives cause to worry, given that 3DS sales dropped so precipitously that Nintendo slashed the console’s price by a third less than six months after it went on sale.
For now, Sony is working hard to let gamers try the Vita themselves. In a novel bit of marketing, Sony opened up a pop-up store at Gough and Union streets in San Francisco where prospective buyers can sample Vita’s capabilities.
Recently I stopped by the Vita Hill Social Club, as it is known, to spend some time with the new console. Here are some early impressions:
The hardware
First thing’s first: The Vita is beautiful. Where the 3DS is a drab plastic rectangle, the Vita is a sleek black ellipse. A stunning, 5-inch touch screen is bigger and more impressive than any smart phone’s, and the device is light but feels sturdy. The array of buttons and controls on the front offer a reminder that the Vita was built for a lot more than solitaire.
The device is full of clever design touches: I love how the clear plastic shoulder buttons complete the elliptical shape, and the way its unique rear touch pad enables strange new game play. It has all the features you would expect in a next-generation mobile device – front and rear cameras, a microphone and a GPS sensor. And yet all of this feels less important to me than the fact that the Vita looks cool, and if you saw someone using one you would probably ask to borrow it.
With this year’s excellent “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception” for PlayStation 3 landing on scores of year-end top 10 lists, expectations are running high for this installment of the PlayStation-exclusive franchise.
‘Uncharted’ territory
The short stretches of “Uncharted: Golden Abyss” that I played appear to deliver on Vita’s promise of a console-quality experience, thanks to gorgeous graphics and innovative game play that takes advantage of the Vita’s quirky features. You can aim your gun by moving the Vita around, for example, or swipe up on the touch screen to make Drake climb a ladder. The experience feels fresh overall, even though some touches come off as gratuitous. Why drag a finger across the screen to punch an enemy when any number of buttons on the device would accomplish the same task, without obscuring my view of the action?
Still, “Golden Abyss” is the best-looking game I’ve seen on the Vita so far.
Content creation
While Vita games will offer plenty of straight-ahead action, developers are also catering to the many gamers who like to build and modify their own worlds. “Little Big Planet,” a hit franchise on the PlayStation 3, will arrive on the Vita next year with an impressive number of tools to build platform adventures. A Sony rep showed me how to build a level with ease, and the result was as charming and whimsical as fans of the series have come to expect.
Building is also a big part of “ModNation Racers,” a racing game that will be available at launch. Players can create new tracks simply by drawing a shape with their fingers, then populate them with a variety of natural terrain, buildings and architectural features. The game also makes clever use of the touch pads. Builders can tap the bottom touch pad to mold the terrain into hills and mountains, or tap the front touch screen to flatten it out again. Players can upload their tracks to the cloud and play the creations of others.
Augmented reality
Other games take advantage of the Vita’s cameras to create “augmented reality” experiences that project game play into the real world. One of these is “Reality Fighters,” whose gimmick is that it takes a picture of your face and then maps it onto your warrior of choice. After dressing yourself up with outré costumes and weaponry, the rear camera lens opens and makes it appear that your character is fighting on whatever surface happens to be below you. The joke-y graphics didn’t exactly scream “must buy” to me, though it was a thrill to beat up a ninja who was standing on my reporter’s notebook.
Some developers appear to have gone overboard incorporating new features. My least favorite game at Vita Hill was “Little Deviants,” a series of mini-games involving blob-like creatures with annoying personalities.
In one, I tapped the rear touch pad to create little hills for the deviants to roll down; in another, I had to “pinch” using both touch surfaces in order to send one monster ricocheting into another. Suddenly, I felt like I had stopped playing a game and was instead learning a bizarre new language.
Biggest challenge: price
The Vita’s biggest challenge will be convincing players of its value in a world where they have plenty of gaming options whose prices start at “free.” At $249 for the entry-level, Wi-Fi-only model, the Vita costs the same as a brand-new PS3.
If the games are good enough, that might be a price players are willing to pay. The question is how many more like “Golden Abyss” Sony has up its sleeve.
PSP pop-up store
Where
Vita Hill Social Club, 1694 Union St., San Francisco
Hours
Monday through Wednesday: Noon to 7:30 p.m.
Thursday: 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday: 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Saturday: Noon to 10 p.m.
Sunday: Noon to 6 p.m.
E-mail Casey Newton at cnewton@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/25/BU2G1MC4H7.DTL
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