PSVITA Master Thread - 3.60 Update

[Septimus Prime]

Originally Posted by AranhaHunter

I recently bought Dead Space 2, and the the PS Store is very nicely integrated there. You never have to get out of the game to purchase or download DLC whereas in other games when you connect to the store you have to get out, go to the store, and then relaunch the game.

I'm expecting this kind of integration for games on Vita. Easy, quick access to the store with one click download/purchase.

You can actually do that with any game. It's just that most opt to go to PlayStation®Store, as it is easier.

Originally Posted by GLaDOS

Must feel good on the fingertips.

It does.

[Shin-Ra]

If January's Hot Shots demo is anything to go by, it's so quick suspending a game and directly launching that game's specific PS Store area from the game's launch page that it wouldn't be a hassle loading in and out any more.

[17:24] http://webassets.scea.com/pscomauth/...ie_ngp2_hd.mp4

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

Atelier Meruru Director on Young Rorona and PlayStation Vita


You may remember, Falcom's already committed...

Legend of Heroes Developer Readying [VITA] Launch RPG

Well Gust has already ported Atelier Judie and Violet with Mana Khemia 1 and 2 to PSP, but those were PS2 games. But I can see the Arland Atelier games, Iris, and maybe Ar tonelico on PS Vita if not PS3.

As for Falcom, I welcome them to making a PS Vita game.

[hellmonkey]

Originally Posted by GLaDOS

Must feel good on the fingertips.

That is so something I would love to do. But it would be with parts of the wife, not the NGP.

[Shin-Ra]

Clear look at the Game Card.

[Elandyll]

Originally Posted by hellmonkey

That is so something I would love to do. But it would be with parts of the wife, not the NGP.

It is strangely mesmerizing .. almost the same as



Please pardon this outrageous Off Topic

[Uxi]

mwahahaha, thank you for the OT. Both of them together...

[Grim Reaper]

rumored release date for Nov 4th. for the uk of course.

http://www.qj.net/ps-vita/news/uk-re...unch-date.html

[becomingwater]

http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/new...in-europe.html

PlayStation Vita won't be available until next year in Europe, according to several reports.

Sony will delay the handheld past Christmas for a January or February 2012 release, according to CVG.

"Sony know it's effectively gifting the festive handheld market to 3DS - but is still really confident of a success," said a senior retail source.

"They want the hardcore to buy first and then spread the word. It's a blow, but they think they can still do that without the Christmas sales boost."

Meanwhile, a developer told VG247 that a 2012 European release is a "certainty".

Sony will most likely confirm a European release schedule and pricing at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany this August.

Earlier this week, retailer ShopTo suggested a November 4 release date for PlayStation Vita, as well as a £40 price point on games.

PlayStation Vita has been priced at £230 for a WiFi-only model by UK retailers and is thought to be region free.

PlayStation Vita was revealed and priced for the US during Sony's E3 2011 press conference earlier this month.

[Shin-Ra]

Understanding the System

Sony subsidiary SN Systems is the company behind much of the tech in its parent company's platform developer environments, including that of the NGP.

Develop met with some of the once-independent organisation’s core staff to find out more about an outfit that has been part of the Sony family since 2005.

CREATING DEVELOPMENT TECH FOR A NEW DEVICE LIKE NGP MUST BE DIFFICULT. WHAT CHALLENGES DEFINED THE EXPERIENCE?

Beveridge: ARM wasn’t a surprise; we’ve worked with ARM before – albeit a slightly different ARM, so that was fairly straightforward. One of the biggest challenges for us has been the performance analysis side of things.

Something that was always very difficult for us when we were independent was the GPU side. We do CPU tools.

We do compilers, assemblers, debuggers and so on. The GPU has always been something that game developers really care about, perhaps more than the CPU. GPU throughput is almost everything to them.

Because we were always CPU focused, and left game development before GPUs really took off, at first we never really understood it. It was the reserve of studio tech-lead developers. Not having that in house, we just left it alone.

This is the first platform that we’ve actually got part of the product that is a combined CPU and GPU analysis tool, and that’s been a multi-territory, multi-team development effort between ourselves, the SCE R&D departments in the US and Europe, and the first party guys (WWS – SCE Worldwide Studios). It was a lot of work, but it’s been worth it for what we now have.

James: On PS3 there was a separate CPU tool called Tuner that we developed and a separate GPU analysis tool called GPAD that was developed in the US.

Beveridge: And GPAD and Tuner came out pretty late in the cycle for the PS3 as well. NGP already has all of that kind of thing within one tool.

Liviabella: It’s called Razor, and although it’s led by one of SN’s senior guys Tom Charlesworth, it’s very much a joint product bringing together a variety of experienced teams and knowledge base. At the point when we were bought by SCE there were lots of different tools that did lots of different things. We’ve all worked on collaborating internally to minimise duplication of work and deliver better products to developers.

Beveridge: When we were independent, we would get given our first look at a dev kit at about the same time as the first third-party developers got a look at it. In that situation our customers were already having to develop their games, and they were phoning us up straight away asking if we have any tools, to which we had to say ‘no, we’ve only just got a dev kit’.

We needed a few weeks, and it meant a lot of shipping tools for free as betas to the developers. That was in the old days of course, and it’s very different now, as well ahead of release we’re able to plan what the tools are going to contain and what the schedule for bring-up should be.

WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY, THEN, THAT THERE HAS BEEN A MORE COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO DEVELOPING THE NGP AND ITS DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT THAN WITH PREVIOUS PLATFORMS?

Liviabella: Most definitely, lessons have been learnt and we're all very much working towards one goal. Different teams in different regions all have a duty to communicate and ensure we're working in the same direction. We've certainly established some very important relationships with different development teams and studios across the world.

In fact, many of the lessons and changes we've made to NGP have made their way into our PS3 tools as well. Let's not forget, PS3 is still very much a huge priority for us and we have lots of great titles still yet to be released, so anything we've learnt from NGP is usually transferred to our PS3 development environment as well. Like any merger or take-over, there's a learning curve and it can take time, but time has moved on now and we're very much part of the PlayStation development network.

Five more Q's and A's at the link.

[Shin-Ra]

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201106/30045993.html

At the Game Tools and Middleware Forum 2011 event in Tokyo, SCE showed a PS Vita facial tracking tech demo, similar to this [video link] with PS Eye I expect:

Face Detection

• Detects head position and rotation
• Supports multiple faces
• Identifies individuals

Face Recognition

Demonstration Video

• Face contour detection
• Feature detection
  • Eyes, nose, mouth, etc.
• Face attributes
  • Smile
  • Male/Female
  • Age (Adult/Child)
  • Glasses
  • Eyes open/closed

I looks like they showed the markerless (really, natural marker), dinosaur tracking demo from GDC again. We get a much clearer look at the dino rendering in these photos.




The natural marker can be any distinctive image or scene recognised from a database (could be an online database, regularly updated) at GDC they used an Ape Escape PS3 case as a marker.




Once locked in, you can move around the 3D model as if the PS Vita was a camera, using the internal SIXAXIS gyro+accelerometer and electronic compass sensors.

[Shin-Ra]

Videos of the two above demos here:

http://www.4gamer.net/games/032/G003263/20110630101/

For the face tracking 3D model chat, seeing as you're not playing a game and expecting exact, responsive feedback (in fact you'd mostly be looking at the 3D representation of your friend), they could easily interpolate and smooth the mouth animation and speed up the blinks / make them full closures.

And remove the creepy doll avatar!

It's worth reiterating that this isn't intended to be a PS Vita application. If they polished it up, I think it'd be popular though.

[ZX_VRT]

Looks pretty cool, which one would be better to get the wifi or the 3g? and whats with the name? ps vita? sounds like a medicine

[hellmonkey]

Originally Posted by ZX_VRT

Looks pretty cool, which one would be better to get the wifi or the 3g? and whats with the name? ps vita? sounds like a medicine

Well, Since your Canadian, Im not really sure how cell coverage is up there. The 3g model is only on AT&T in the states, which IMO sucks. I woudlnt wipe my butt with At&Ts coverage.

If for some reason, I do decide to get one, it will be the WiFi only model. Im not really into portable gaming that much, but I would like to upgrade my psp-1000. If the community gets homebrew running so I can run SNES EMU and ISOs, then Ill probably get it.

[Shin-Ra]

This is going to be your last comic store update for PSP as the Digital Comics Team are now working on bringing the comic service to other Sony devices. We’ll make sure to keep you updated with any future developments right here on the blog. In the meantime, you can continue to download any of the over 4000 existing comics from the comic store as usual; thanks for your support and we hope you continue enjoying comics on PSP.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/...6th-july-2011/

Well, we know what one of those devices will be.

[PA_Kid]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/...6th-july-2011/

Well, we know what one of those devices will be.

Actually, I'm guessing that it's for the S1/S2 and Xperia Play. (the push for why it's happening now I mean)

DC comics is relaunching everything in September with a new #1 and starting full day and date digital distribution. They (DC) also indicated that the platforms/companies being supported are Comixology, the Apple app store, and the PSN.

The timing lines up perfectly. DC was the only one doing any day and date releases at all on the PSP store. The S1/S2 should be out in the fall and should be playstation certified.

My guess is that we're going to see a Playstation-certified comics app that will work with the PSP (and then Vita) also.

I may be wrong, I just can't imagine that DC talked to Sony about day and date and the relaunch and then Sony decided they'd let Apple and Comixology split the whole market share for a few months and jump in a few months later with issue 4 or 5.

[AranhaHunter]

YouTube - ‪Sony PS VITA‬‏

I think this is new, no new gameplay or anything though.

[Shin-Ra]

Originally Posted by AranhaHunter

I think this is new, no new gameplay or anything though.

I made a new thread (the same minute you posted! ) going into a bit more detail, collecting information from several events which I'll try to keep updated.

There's a couple more general details I noticed though. There's an animated battery icon (charging perhaps?) and the infra-red icon makes another appearance after GDC but the UI build they're showing could still be that old.



IR to the right of reception.



back at GDC:

[Shin-Ra]

Xseed Interview Part 2 – Exceeding The Future

In your opinion, what systems do you think are the strongest ones that you want to be on now?

If we could be there at the launch of Vita, that would be absolutely great for us. It just seems like a natural transition from all of the PSP work we’ve been doing recently to be able to move on to Sony’s next handheld platform.

That’s interesting, so you’re already looking at Vita games… maybe the upcoming Falcom game?

Sure, I mean there are other people that are making games for Vita already. We’ll keep any eye on the progress of those games and keep discussions open with those developers and hopefully something will pan out. Like I said it’d be great if it’s right at launch, but anything within launch window, within the first six months of the hardware launching. That would be an ideal scenario for us.

[StereoMike]

Nothing new here, still a good read though.

http://www.businessinsider.com/plays...-hardly-2011-7

PSP was Sony's first entry in the portable market, and despite several missteps, the sexy device was a huge success, selling over 65 million units while supporting a library of must have titles.

People tend to forget that.