So Insomniac, Ready at Dawn, and even Sanzaru are making Rift-exclusive games? What's up with Oculus scooping up PlayStation-associated developers? Aside from the fact that Jason Rubin is the head of their studios...
I remember when the older PlayStation Network logo was revealed; You know, the 'globe' one with the PlayStation button symbols warped around it. And I rather enjoyed that. Though, I can see that the "PS" logo is much more recognizable to most people who aren't gamers, so they might as well leverage that. Though, it doesn't really 'say' "PSN" to me as much as the new logo (then again, neither did the old logo). And actually, it looks a lot like the PlayStation App logo, probably by design. But eh: I don't think it really matters all that much. It's alright & not terrible. Don't mind seeing it for the next console generation until Sony decides to rebrand it again...
Personally, I'm really looking forward to the improved Remote Play functionality. I like to use Remote Play on my Vita quite a bit, and I look forward to see if my setup will allow for the 60 fps streaming. Lot of other great stuff in this big update that'll benefit others, but not necessarily me. Like the 0% trophy deletion: I never really felt the need of cleaning up my trophy list, but I know there's MANY people out there that REALLY want it. With that and the sub-account upgrade, hopefully PSN ID name changes will come soon? Maybe??
PSTV is a real missed opportunity. It's a nice cheap entry point to get people into the Vita ecosystem, which could then mean a bigger audience for devs to consider. Though, the lacking library of supported games is disappointing. As mentioned: There's plenty of games that would make sense but were never patched to support PSTV. One big example I can think of is PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: That makes perfect sense on PSTV, and they can patch in local multiplayer support: Even better! Actually, that's an aspect of the PSTV that's most interesting to me: The potential to be a fun super-portable local multiplayer machine to easily bring to parties. Instead of lugging over my PS4, I could just bring a PSTV to a party and play something like Nidhogg and hopefully Towerfall: Ascension when it comes to Vita. As one that does bring my consoles to parties of close friends & families, just bringing a super small and light unit like PSTV and a few controllers is really attractive to me. At the moment, I still haven't bought one yet, but the unofficial price drops are tempting (even more so when they drop it even further). The thing is, as a PS3/PS4/PSVita owner, I don't really have a need for a PSTV, except to play certain games like Persona 4 Golden on my television instead of a small screen. There's still potential for PlayStation TV, but I'm afraid stores will take it off their shelves before Sony ever realizes it.
I wonder if America will ever get this game. Maybe a year later like the first Vita game. Or years later like the third PSP game. Whatever the case: I do hope that the AR-marker-free experience works well enough.
As a PlayStation fan & collector, I'm definitely interested in picking one up just to complete my collection of PS systems, but honestly: I don't really see much of a need for it myself.
PS4 remote-play is real neat, but I'm not really in a situation where I'd find that useful. And while it's nice to play some Vita & PSP games on the TV, I don't think I'll spend much time doing that either.
I do think that it's a nice entry-level PlayStation console (until Sony does drop the PS3 price down even more past $199). I see it being a great kid-room system, and they're clearly aiming for that with the LEGO Movie bundle.
The major issue here is the potential confusion for consumers. There's already PS3, PS4, and the fairly non-existent PSVita (at least at retailers), and now this, which is just called "PlayStation TV'. It doesn't really tell people what it plays (though it does sound better than "PSVita TV"). And once the consumer finds out that it plays Vita games, they don't know if X PSVita game plays on PSTV unless they research the list of approved games. I could see people buying PSTV and something like LittleBigPlanet Vita or Tearaway and come home only to find out that they can't play it. Are we gonna have stickers on PSVita boxes that say "Also playable on PlayStation TV!" the same way some Nintendo 3DS boxes say "Also playable on 2DS!"?
While it's a bit of an odd product: I do hope that it's pretty successful in the end. Because if it is: It means that there could be even more PSVita games down the line, which is always a good thing. I look forward to how it fares in the holiday shopping season...
PlayStation Mobile had a lot of potential, but it was clear that it's a dying thing.
The biggest issue with PSM is that it's very limited to a certain number of devices. It would have been nice to open PSM to ALL Android users like other various app store providers like Amazon, but Sony restricted it to a small number of phones from a few manufacturers, namely Sony themselves. Not everyone has those phones, and even if they did, almost none of those people knew about PSM or how to get it.
I actually own the Sony Xperia Play, and I for the longest time when the service launched had no idea how to actually download and access PSM.
The next big issue is the content. There just isn't enough noteworthy content on there. Barely any from Sony themselves. It would have been great if SCE just even ported the old 2D Java-based God of War or Ratchet & Clank dumb-phone mobile games to the service, but there just weren't any major Sony brands on it. That, and the games initially were priced a bit too high, like a dollar or two more than what the usual impulse-buy app user would want to pay for, which is normally free or just $.99.
PlayStation Mobile overall is pretty much Sony's version Xbox Live Indie Games on 360, but now exclusively to their handheld that unfortunately isn't selling as-is. And being like XBL's Indie Games isn't necessarily a bad thing: It's a much more open platform to let anyone make their own game on a PlayStation system meaning that we might see some cool stuff, and there are a few cool stuff, but overall we just get some crappy apps instead.
I think it would be much cooler if PSMobile does become something like 'minis' again in the sense that you can play the game over multiple systems, console or handheld. Just need an easy way to transfer saves, though, because there was no way to move my progress off my Xperia Play onto my Vita for PSM titles.
If Sony pushes PSM to be a low entry to developers to make games for their systems, not just on the Vita side, I can see a lot of potential for it. But if they should probably change the name of PlayStation Mobile (again) to reflect that, well, mobile devices are out of the equation now...
I think it's important to have these casual/family brands on PS4. SingStar and the like have their big followings, though, are these franchises still as relevant as they were before?
Regardless, I'd love to see more of them on PS4.
SingStar on the PS3 had great sharing features, and it would be cool to live-stream all that singing directly to Twitch/Ustream (granted, there may be issues with that legally, depending on how the licenses are)
Buzz can be great fun on the PS4, but sans plastic peripherals. Imagine downloading an app onto your PSVita and/or other mobile devices to play Buzz instead of pricey buzzers. This could give even more gameplay opportunities given that each player has their own screen (and mics, cameras, motion sensors...)
Seeing how nicely The Playroom is going, I can easily see a new EyePet game using the new PS Camera, as well as other similar AR/motion games. It demos so well in front of others, especially on mainstream shows like Jimmy Fallon. It would be a crime not to push out more games like that, as newcomers might expect more like it.
Or, perhaps it's best to start off fresh this gen and make new casual/family-friendly franchises to work off of. Whatever Media Molecule, London Studio, & other devs (like Novarama) may be cooking up for the PS4 may very well be the next best thing since SingStar...
If done right, PSVita TV could help encourage sales of both Vita games & maybe Vita handhelds. What I mean by that last one is that, well, not everything will work on TV. If you want the "full" experience and play games you can't on PSVita TV, like Tearaway or Gravity Rush, along with playing your library on-the-go, it could tempt some people to buy the handheld. But overall: PSVita TV could help get more games on the platform, if Sony plays their cards right (the major card being advertising).
The biggest reason for me to get the microconsole would be for the PS4 remote play streaming. Just the concept of moving from the living room to my bedroom TV without having to move consoles or own another PS4 sounds real good to me, if the tech actually works well.
The other big thing PSVita TV has in the future not mentioned here: Gaikai cloud streaming. Once Sony gets that up & running in 2014, the PSVita TV is essentially a $99 PS3. (considering that you have a stable internet connection, Sony's servers aren't down for maintenance, and that you don't mind buying digital & not use physical disks)
I feel that the PSVita TV can be a very good trojan horse to bring people into the PlayStation ecosystem: PS1 games, PSP games, PSVita games, PS Mobile, PS4 streaming, and soon, Gaikai PS3 cloud streaming. All for just $99. But once again: The major hurdle, if Sony decides to offer it elsewhere, is marketing.
The last mention that I know of Sorcery was from the development studio The Workshop who's site mentions back in February "Development for "Sorcery" is in full-swing. We're really excited on the progress so far." http://www.theworkshop.us.com/ Hope it's still being worked on and not gonna end up being vaporware...
Comments 11
Re: E3 2015: Ready at Dawn Ditching PS4 for Oculus Rift Exclusive
So Insomniac, Ready at Dawn, and even Sanzaru are making Rift-exclusive games? What's up with Oculus scooping up PlayStation-associated developers? Aside from the fact that Jason Rubin is the head of their studios...
Re: Poll: What Do You Think of the New PSN Logo?
I remember when the older PlayStation Network logo was revealed; You know, the 'globe' one with the PlayStation button symbols warped around it. And I rather enjoyed that. Though, I can see that the "PS" logo is much more recognizable to most people who aren't gamers, so they might as well leverage that.
Though, it doesn't really 'say' "PSN" to me as much as the new logo (then again, neither did the old logo). And actually, it looks a lot like the PlayStation App logo, probably by design.
But eh: I don't think it really matters all that much. It's alright & not terrible. Don't mind seeing it for the next console generation until Sony decides to rebrand it again...
Re: PS4 Firmware Update 2.50 Will Deploy Tomorrow
Personally, I'm really looking forward to the improved Remote Play functionality. I like to use Remote Play on my Vita quite a bit, and I look forward to see if my setup will allow for the 60 fps streaming.
Lot of other great stuff in this big update that'll benefit others, but not necessarily me. Like the 0% trophy deletion: I never really felt the need of cleaning up my trophy list, but I know there's MANY people out there that REALLY want it.
With that and the sub-account upgrade, hopefully PSN ID name changes will come soon? Maybe??
Re: Hardware Review: PlayStation TV - Turn Off
PSTV is a real missed opportunity. It's a nice cheap entry point to get people into the Vita ecosystem, which could then mean a bigger audience for devs to consider. Though, the lacking library of supported games is disappointing. As mentioned: There's plenty of games that would make sense but were never patched to support PSTV. One big example I can think of is PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: That makes perfect sense on PSTV, and they can patch in local multiplayer support: Even better!
Actually, that's an aspect of the PSTV that's most interesting to me: The potential to be a fun super-portable local multiplayer machine to easily bring to parties. Instead of lugging over my PS4, I could just bring a PSTV to a party and play something like Nidhogg and hopefully Towerfall: Ascension when it comes to Vita. As one that does bring my consoles to parties of close friends & families, just bringing a super small and light unit like PSTV and a few controllers is really attractive to me.
At the moment, I still haven't bought one yet, but the unofficial price drops are tempting (even more so when they drop it even further). The thing is, as a PS3/PS4/PSVita owner, I don't really have a need for a PSTV, except to play certain games like Persona 4 Golden on my television instead of a small screen.
There's still potential for PlayStation TV, but I'm afraid stores will take it off their shelves before Sony ever realizes it.
Re: The Invizimals Put Up a Fresh Fight on PlayStation Vita This Month
I wonder if America will ever get this game. Maybe a year later like the first Vita game. Or years later like the third PSP game. Whatever the case: I do hope that the AR-marker-free experience works well enough.
Re: Poll: Are You in Tune with the PlayStation TV?
As a PlayStation fan & collector, I'm definitely interested in picking one up just to complete my collection of PS systems, but honestly: I don't really see much of a need for it myself.
PS4 remote-play is real neat, but I'm not really in a situation where I'd find that useful. And while it's nice to play some Vita & PSP games on the TV, I don't think I'll spend much time doing that either.
I do think that it's a nice entry-level PlayStation console (until Sony does drop the PS3 price down even more past $199). I see it being a great kid-room system, and they're clearly aiming for that with the LEGO Movie bundle.
The major issue here is the potential confusion for consumers. There's already PS3, PS4, and the fairly non-existent PSVita (at least at retailers), and now this, which is just called "PlayStation TV'. It doesn't really tell people what it plays (though it does sound better than "PSVita TV"). And once the consumer finds out that it plays Vita games, they don't know if X PSVita game plays on PSTV unless they research the list of approved games. I could see people buying PSTV and something like LittleBigPlanet Vita or Tearaway and come home only to find out that they can't play it. Are we gonna have stickers on PSVita boxes that say "Also playable on PlayStation TV!" the same way some Nintendo 3DS boxes say "Also playable on 2DS!"?
While it's a bit of an odd product: I do hope that it's pretty successful in the end. Because if it is: It means that there could be even more PSVita games down the line, which is always a good thing.
I look forward to how it fares in the holiday shopping season...
Re: Feature: What Went Wrong with PlayStation Mobile?
PlayStation Mobile had a lot of potential, but it was clear that it's a dying thing.
The biggest issue with PSM is that it's very limited to a certain number of devices. It would have been nice to open PSM to ALL Android users like other various app store providers like Amazon, but Sony restricted it to a small number of phones from a few manufacturers, namely Sony themselves. Not everyone has those phones, and even if they did, almost none of those people knew about PSM or how to get it.
I actually own the Sony Xperia Play, and I for the longest time when the service launched had no idea how to actually download and access PSM.
The next big issue is the content. There just isn't enough noteworthy content on there. Barely any from Sony themselves. It would have been great if SCE just even ported the old 2D Java-based God of War or Ratchet & Clank dumb-phone mobile games to the service, but there just weren't any major Sony brands on it.
That, and the games initially were priced a bit too high, like a dollar or two more than what the usual impulse-buy app user would want to pay for, which is normally free or just $.99.
PlayStation Mobile overall is pretty much Sony's version Xbox Live Indie Games on 360, but now exclusively to their handheld that unfortunately isn't selling as-is. And being like XBL's Indie Games isn't necessarily a bad thing: It's a much more open platform to let anyone make their own game on a PlayStation system meaning that we might see some cool stuff, and there are a few cool stuff, but overall we just get some crappy apps instead.
I think it would be much cooler if PSMobile does become something like 'minis' again in the sense that you can play the game over multiple systems, console or handheld. Just need an easy way to transfer saves, though, because there was no way to move my progress off my Xperia Play onto my Vita for PSM titles.
If Sony pushes PSM to be a low entry to developers to make games for their systems, not just on the Vita side, I can see a lot of potential for it. But if they should probably change the name of PlayStation Mobile (again) to reflect that, well, mobile devices are out of the equation now...
Re: Talking Point: Do Sony's Family Franchises Have a Future on PS4?
I think it's important to have these casual/family brands on PS4. SingStar and the like have their big followings, though, are these franchises still as relevant as they were before?
Regardless, I'd love to see more of them on PS4.
SingStar on the PS3 had great sharing features, and it would be cool to live-stream all that singing directly to Twitch/Ustream (granted, there may be issues with that legally, depending on how the licenses are)
Buzz can be great fun on the PS4, but sans plastic peripherals. Imagine downloading an app onto your PSVita and/or other mobile devices to play Buzz instead of pricey buzzers. This could give even more gameplay opportunities given that each player has their own screen (and mics, cameras, motion sensors...)
Seeing how nicely The Playroom is going, I can easily see a new EyePet game using the new PS Camera, as well as other similar AR/motion games. It demos so well in front of others, especially on mainstream shows like Jimmy Fallon. It would be a crime not to push out more games like that, as newcomers might expect more like it.
Or, perhaps it's best to start off fresh this gen and make new casual/family-friendly franchises to work off of. Whatever Media Molecule, London Studio, & other devs (like Novarama) may be cooking up for the PS4 may very well be the next best thing since SingStar...
Re: Talking Point: Are You in Tune with Sony's Multifunctional PS Vita TV?
If done right, PSVita TV could help encourage sales of both Vita games & maybe Vita handhelds. What I mean by that last one is that, well, not everything will work on TV. If you want the "full" experience and play games you can't on PSVita TV, like Tearaway or Gravity Rush, along with playing your library on-the-go, it could tempt some people to buy the handheld.
But overall: PSVita TV could help get more games on the platform, if Sony plays their cards right (the major card being advertising).
The biggest reason for me to get the microconsole would be for the PS4 remote play streaming. Just the concept of moving from the living room to my bedroom TV without having to move consoles or own another PS4 sounds real good to me, if the tech actually works well.
The other big thing PSVita TV has in the future not mentioned here: Gaikai cloud streaming.
Once Sony gets that up & running in 2014, the PSVita TV is essentially a $99 PS3. (considering that you have a stable internet connection, Sony's servers aren't down for maintenance, and that you don't mind buying digital & not use physical disks)
I feel that the PSVita TV can be a very good trojan horse to bring people into the PlayStation ecosystem: PS1 games, PSP games, PSVita games, PS Mobile, PS4 streaming, and soon, Gaikai PS3 cloud streaming. All for just $99.
But once again: The major hurdle, if Sony decides to offer it elsewhere, is marketing.
Re: Sony, With These Move Lifestyle Photos You Are Spoiling Us
These pics are obviously not for the US Market because they're using WIRELESS SingStar Mics!
/sigh Why so behind, SCEA?
Re: E3 2011 MIA: What Happened to Sorcery?
The last mention that I know of Sorcery was from the development studio The Workshop who's site mentions back in February "Development for "Sorcery" is in full-swing. We're really excited on the progress so far." http://www.theworkshop.us.com/
Hope it's still being worked on and not gonna end up being vaporware...