Wednesday, 23 May 2012

PlayStation Vita – Technology Times


PlayStation Vita games are already on store shelves, the PlayStation Network already has Vita games on it, and the First Edition PlayStation Vita bundle hits the street this week, and IGN has been reviewing games all week.  Sony did a good job at giving you a lot of useful items in the 1st edition bundle. You get of course the Vita itself, a very nice carrying case, power adapter, memory card and a pack in game. I was slightly disappointed in the fact that Sony didn't include something a little more beefy game wise like Wipeout or even swung for the fences with Uncharted as the pack in. The PS Vita at first glance looks just like its predecessor and it took me awhile to figure out that all of the buttons and switches have been moved. The menu interface has been noticeably Apple'd and Wii'd, binning the Sony PS3/PSP austere XMB chic for a far more approachable cutesie bubble world of app icon, swipe-able windows and one-home-button-press-from-anywhere familiarity. The classic Sixasis gyroscope/accelerometer double header of the PS3's Dualshock controller is present for motion-sensing malarkey, as is a very good attempt to recreate its dual analogue sticks, which though necessarily on the small side reduce the PSP's thumb-hating waffled tormentor to a misdemeanour.

The action buttons are micro-switched rather than analogue, so control is not quite as complete as its big brother, but we rarely had complaint (we reserve the right to redress this once FIFA arrives).  Despite some negative reviews that claims that it took forever to get setup, I only took 15 minutes to get up and running and although I got caught in a snag trying to log in to my PSN account, I found that if you go thru the trial period, the Vita will allow you to finish the set up and then you can go back into the settings and put your PSN info in. I had no problems connecting the Vita with my home network and since I have no plans on using AT&T, I had no problems hooking the Vita up to my mifi device. The touchscreen is very responsive and the screen itself is bright, thus far, I have had no problems at all jumping right in. Near is setup and could prove useful as well as Google maps although it won't replace your GPS. Netflix isn't available yet but from what I hear, it will be out next week at launch. However Sony's video rental service is already up and running should you want to get some movies on the go.

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