nhSnork

So that's a tabletop option for Remote Play, at least... although still not much of a solution for what is designed and advertised as a purely handheld device otherwise. Remote Play was a viable option in the last two gens when Sony had what to put it on; smartphones were a poor alternative even then.

@Bleachedsmiles yeah, I'm also a bit puzzled about the topicality of a fishing mechanic in a game where you can just wade into the water and grab fish with your bare hands.😅

@sanderson72 good to hear, I'll keep it in mind then. Granted, I have for a while, and the price does remain the other deterrent - indeed, you can buy a Vita itself for this money, and the import tax I mentioned earlier could easily bring it closer to the price of a used PS4.😅

@sanderson72 yeah, for some reason it's the default mapping scheme that kicks in wherever the devs don't bother to program their own. If the game doesn't provide internal remappings either, you're screwed because during a stream the default Remote Play scheme somehow overrides even the alterations you make in PS4's system menu. And I hear Hori once made a licensed grip with standard triggers that was officially compatible with Vita but could never get its triggers recognised during Remote Play either... thus reportedly failing pretty much the one job it had. Maybe that's why the later grips stoop to mechanical pressure (although I wonder if it's bound to do a number on the touchpad after prolonged usage).

Alas, even getting a grip like that is easier said than done - AliExpress is still pretty much the only foreign online store that ships tech items and peripherals to Belarus, and the specimens I dag up over there tend to exceed €22/$25... which also means they would be import-taxed here on top of that. Between this and the aforementioned concerns about the long-term touchpad durability, I have yet to invest in such an option even though it seems like the only relatively reliable solution.

Sony: "We've partly lost the European trademark for what now?"

And forget support - just imagine a parallel universe with Sony releasing a more beefed up, say, "PlayStation Trove" in Vita form factor and resolution but with clickable sticks and additional triggers, with hardware enough to handle the emulation of select "PS2 classics" but also compatible with the full digitally available libraries of PS1, PSP and Vita... and with PS4/PS5 Remote Play for good measure. Pretty sure I wouldn't be the only one queueing up for such a thing. Sony would just need to make it not for any "competition" with Switch but simply, as that old slogan went, for the playe-

But the way things are, yes, I still play my Vita. Both of them since summer - the newer and hacked one now housing my PSP's contents and providing access to plentiful games off-limits on the main unit (from patched Japanese releases like Blue Reflection and Warriors All-Stars to localized but no longer or never purchasable ones like The Amazing Spider-Man and NightCry) while the main unit still has its own sizeable collection (last updated in May) and an equally sizeable wishlist (hopefully to be decreased again as soon as these holidays... I mean through more
of my investments, NOT through the Store app losing yet more titles!👹👹👹). Not to mention the admittedly rare (much due to the proverbial control scheme limitations) but still recurrent PS4 stream sessions. Vita will always mean "life" regardless of what it has ever meant to its progressively apathetic corporate parent.

So people were complaining about a booster that no sane person with any interest in the game would purchase in the first place. It's an action RPG and facing any amount of grind drives some folks to assume that their precious progression towards another bunch of trophies is "nerfed" in favour of MTX. I don't even dare ask how many of them were barking at Squeenix on social media while begrudgingly processing the purchase.🙄

@wiiware as PS just reported, Yoshida seems to agree.😏

@Agramonte unless/until devs start officially tuning games to Steam Deck itself, "support" sounds a bit ironic in the sphere where they're given a vague "recommended/mimimal specs" sheet applied to a sheer multitude of builds, configurations and user behaviours. If mere power guaranteed as much, something like GPD Win 3 could have already worn the mantle for a while now. But what is manageable on these things is usually manageable on them, and I doubt Yoshida would have boasted the experience if this one wasn't. Assuming I'll ever be able to obtain a Steam Deck where I live, the above tweet is proof I'll have at least one game to look forward to and double-dip on.

@Jayslow I'd understand having issues with calling it a pocket PC as compared to PDAs and smartphones those PDAs evolved into. But "handheld" doesn't describe sizes, it describes something you literally lift and hold in your hands to use. Contrary to, say, laptops.

@Residentsteven well, I absolutely would. Barring distinct content disparity, I'll always opt for a portable console port over a portable PC one, thank you very much.

Definitely bound to be surpassed by Switch (tell that to all the comparative spec mockers back in 2017), but its numbers are nothing to sneeze at anyway - and well-deserved IMHO, as Sony's first home console that focused on being an actual video game machine rather than a multimedia center.

@wiiware "PS4 portable (like Steam Deck)"

@Korgon to be even fairer, though, most Switch revision double-dippers I've heard about tend to pass their older units down to friends and family or even just sell ebay them off their hands (unless the unit in question is too battered for either), so how much those double-dips ultimately boost the actual number of tracked sales is a different question.

@Agramonte I mean, those who can USE the game on this system most likely are.😏 Granted, the game's controls look kinda manageable here, but again, even with my unlimited mobile data plan nowadays, we're still talking a $40 offline port vs the one I have to stream all the time. I might as well reserve those streaming sessions for a more contextually fitting PS+ item like Greedfall.

Most of the PS4 offerings are on Switch as well and First Class Trouble sounds too multiplayer for my taste, but I still appreciate that the latter's distribution isn't limited to PS5 users. And if not for having the aforementioned Switch port, Kingdoms of Amalur would have definitely been one of the best PS+ gains this year.

Pretty much on par with Switch's first year after all - and feels more or less deserved for the actual experience-enhancing features the console ultimately came to boast. I may not be in the market for it due to the lack of one specific feature, but it still feels reassuring that even Switch's home peers aren't entirely mired in short-term aesthetic bubblegums alone.

@Shepherd_Tallon console gaming is still console gaming, exclusives or not. For all the potential rough edges and variable odds of them being patched later, every console port is still something anyone would be excused for expecting to be geared towards specific hardware, not a bottomless pit of numerous machines, configurations and user behaviours (like the habit of running a game beside two antivirus programs, five chat clients and a Chrome with 20+ tabs) oh so vaguely covered by the lore of "recommended specs". Even if I have any difficulties running a game on a console, that's typically a question for the devs, not my prompt to disable this, enable that, update these, reinstall/uninstall those and perform a daedra summoning ritual while balancing on my tongue. Adolescents may have more time for all that tinkering, along with more time for PC gaming and home consoles in general, so maybe that's why they're more sensitive to the exclusives buzz. When you're older and fully employed, even if you can afford enough home time for home machines, you'll want to spend that time playing a game rather than trying to get it to work. Installations and patch downloads obstruct that on consoles, too, but they're just as common on PC on top of the aforesaid woes anyway.

@Ultrasmiles define "type of music". Meguro has also done SMT Strange Journey and it's distinctly different from his commonly known Persona fare.

@MrSensical I, too, had a temptation to jokingly fix the title to "PS Now... ...in select European countries". But then again, why do I even bother? They ditched Vita support long ago, streaming the PS3 games in transit through PS4 likely wouldn't work (nothing streamed ever does in Remote Play, apps like YouTube or Crunchyroll wouldn't even launch) and I certainly wouldn't subscribe for PS4 titles themselves - while the control scheme gamble has mostly deterred me from buying them separately either, I'm fine with what gradually lands on PS+ which I use for cloud saves and for the collected Vita items like Grand Kingdom and Zero Time Dilemma anyway.

"fans are speculating about a remake of Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Xenoblade, and others"

Ah, yes, Xenoblade, a famous PlayStation game and definitely not remade a year ago.

But since we have a named source for the first time in forever, might as well speculate for real. What old game could be remade with an Irish song therein? Folklore announcement would be a frabjous day (unless it's a PS5 exclusive😅).

Yeah, got notified yesterday. Same as 3DS before them, although in this case I'm ironically unaffected - since PSN refuses any discrepancy between account and issuer regions, bank card top-ups have never been an option for me here anyway.

And this limitation, while a bummer, should even be less hassle than on the aforementioned 3DS because most of the latter's DLCs have to be purchased from the console and thus often require topping up predefined (read: often needlessly larger) amounts; PS3 and Vita ones are all separate items on PS Store and you can pay for them straight in the brows-

Oh. Never mind. My condolences, folks, it IS 3DS all over again.😅

Closer to "meh, okay" since only MKX is topical for me and hails from a series I have lukewarm interest in. But it's not like I haven't got my sub's worth back with titles like Greedfall, Days Gone (despite the likely control issues), Concrete Genie and - should I ever fancy it - FFVIIR already.

@TheRedComet that won't please everyone either. In fact, "AAAs below 3 years old" range sounds almost guaranteed to use the unholy default control scheme in Remote Play, so chances are they would all be barely playable for me.😏

Yeah, I can't help raising an eyebrow at the timer start, too. Even PS4 games can take a while, and PS5 ones tend to be that much bulkier. And it also sounds - correct me if I'm wrong - like this timer won't stop inbetween sessions either, meant to be one big sampling. Maybe these 5-6 hours actually accomodate for the download time on top of that?😅 Because even among folks who can afford to be at home for long (aka the home console target audiences), securing an uninterrupted 6 hour playtime session is a bit far from a given.

PGA Tour on Switch, but MKX isn't (it's the next one that we got, IIRC?) - and, while I don't have much interest in the franchise, it's the kind of game that you can dare expect to control well on Vita. So that's at least one gain for me this month.

Good for it. The SSD and DualSense have saved it from the diminishing return curse of the other "upgrades" that came with the number change, and had its Remote Play functionality not joined Sony's "What's a Vita" club, I could be saving up for a unit - or even already looking to spend on one - as we speak. But it's a neat console regardless, and whatever exclusives stay on it by the time of my retirement might well warrant its place in my abode in that distant future... it'll probably be easier to find by then anyway.😅

@Ralizah who knows, development pipelines (even the ones subcontracted to third parties) are harsh mistresses. Although some speculate that a Switch port may be held off by a similar reason to Elder Scrolls Online (big file size AND big regular updates to add to it), but other projects like Warframe and Skyforge haven't seemed all that perplexed. And if Rockstar is really planning to roll out the other Gen 9 console versions with the main game bought separately from Online, this could potentially address the whole aforesaid issue for a Switch port as well. And I, too, would definitely double-dip on it (after PS4; PC probably doesn't count as it was an EGS giveaway); it's not like I have any motivation to play the hypothetical VI ahead of V to begin with.

"The problem is that it’s more comparable to the PC version running at better settings with a higher resolution than a full, ground-up rebuild"

On a console that's mostly an inventive gamepad away from being a higher-end AMD PC than its predecessor? You don't say. Some fans think that "diminishing returns" is but a phrase.

@nessisonett normal people change things with wallet vote - and if it's trumped by the wallets of other, still interested audiences, they have the ability to shrug and move on to a more financially appealing product/hobby, from one entertainment ultimately optional for their lives to another. Fanship and consumerist mentalities are a different story, of course. They like to buzz about everything like it's communal services or politics on the scale of importance. And anyone less than cripplingly addicted to the subject of contention is apologist sheeple in their eyes.

All Overcooked content is on Switch (and I already own half of it, still stuck on The Peckening even in co-op efforts), Predator evokes more curiosity but only if single player IS possible (Warframe is explicitly geared towards multiplayer as well, but fully playable solo). And of course, both this one and Hitman 2, expected to put healthy emphasis on gunplay, leave the jury still out when it comes to control schemes. But that aside, they'll make pretty neat PS4 library additions.

Like I said before, completely indifferent for once - I don't subscribe to the local buzz that tries to denigrate the games themselves (even though I'm not really into battle royales either), but they're still two games I can access much more conveniently elsewhere and one game I can't access at all. Still adding them to library, though, because why wouldn't I?

I don't have a gripe with the content (although battle royales don't usually so much for me), but between one game on PS5 and two already on Switch, there's nothing I can see myself adding to download queue anytime soon.

Demand on consoles for... classic console games? Perish the thought, I remember when gamers back in 1987 wished they could play Final Fantasy on their MSXs instead...

@ShogunRok it's 2021, and some fans still manage to call a massive crowd of fully employed gamers "a niche".😏 It's been repeated ad nauseaum - while you folks with appropriate life schedules "want to play [insert game] on a big screen while sitting comfortably on a sofa", many others want to PLAY [insert game] at all. No matter how beautiful to look at, it's not some kind of painting, it's a game you're meant to make progress in, to advance the story and other elements of - which tends to feature activities fit for long sessions and those fit for short bursts alike. And no game will "look good" on a big screen if you have time to turn that big screen on once a week at best or one vacation a year at worst.

If Nintendo games were the only thing to buy Nintendo consoles for, Wii U wouldn't end up outsold (if marginally) by the very aforediscussed Vita. Which, by the way, is still THE reason some folks even own and can more or less use a PS4 in the first place. We turn to portable gaming for the ability to accommodate the hobby itself [back] into our adult lives, and no matter how long Nintendo evergreens may top Switch charts, you'll find very few among the 85+ million users whose Switch library would remain limited to these Nintendo evergreens. Steam Deck won't change the picture much - micro PCs offer portability with their own baggage of fine print, this one's strength is mainly a rather competitive pricetag among its own kind, - but I can see folks investing in it for the games not on Switch. Including the few Sony offerings in Steam library as long as Sony itself sticks to big screens and sofas, choosing to capitalize on demographics up to and including the college age.

Industry leaders have room for BotWs and Part Time UFOs alike under their roofs. And if "homeruns" are to be defined by short term memories who deem a classic like Gravity Rush inferior to GoW2018 or HZD, this isn't a baseball game I'm compelled to spectate. But that's more on the coverage of the interview here; Ryan's own words mostly raise a bit of an eyebrow in how he puts PlayStation in "direct competition" with the very forms of entertainment media that other Sony branches cultivate themselves.😅

@guntam I believe I've elaborated on my points enough above; if you came out of it with an idea that I will "happily take PS+ in any form", then I'm not sure if there's anything I can add to counter your skimming techniques.

And I know that fanspeak excels in Freudian slang, but "masturbatory language" sounds like a whole new gem on the block. 😆

In the internet, everything is everyone's business anyway, and a lot of publicly written opinions fall under the demand of taking the same responsibilities as all other incarnations of publicistic writing. If an opinion reeks of fanship venom and its "desire of change" (often on top of change itself regarding a conspicuously hedonistic first world problem) refuses the other party any room to say no at the legitimate cost of possibly losing the requester's wallet, this opinion will be called out for all the consumerist narcissism it radiates. "Flaccid" or not, there's no overruling the civility of an age-old take-it-or-leave-it approach in the market relationships; the reactive rest is just your tough luck of running into a sociopathic philologist with contempt for all fans and their brands of "wanting change".

Me, I don't want this sub "to be better" - I just want it if, when and as long as it gives me something I want for the price I'm motivated and enabled to pay. End of story. And it's not about jumping back in "when you're interested" - like I said above, I don't pay for what I might get in the future months, I pay for what I already have in the sub's frame. Namely, the save cloud and the amassed subscription library full of things that already appeal to me but await their hour in the backlog. Unless both of these factors undergo significant changes (like, say, everything I have here ending up on Switch for me to double-dip on, but that's unlikely) or the subscription price skyrockets to the point of being beyond my reach or getting overshadowed by other spending priorities at a given time, this state of things will thoroughly explain while I continue "flaccidly" spending money on this stuff. And remain a randomly vocal stain on the fandom's dramatic narrative of how unacceptable it is. ¯(ツ)/¯

Indifferent this time. A Plague Tale is awesome and could have ironically been a rarest port I might be caught playing over Switch's (regardless of control scheme pitfalls, 360p/544p remains tangibly more streamable than 720p where I live)... but it's on a console I don't have that's only "portable" on buttonless devices whose creators likely deem even 720p atavistic. Better luck next gen with this game. Elsewhere, I'm lukewarm towards wrestling games (despite fooling around with WWF WrestleMania Challenge quite a bit as a kid, not that I ever figured out how to play efficiently) and to most CoDs that don't at least have "warfare" in the title - but I got one of the latter in the past (could've got two, but the excessively cautious mistake of making a Russian PSN account backfired yet again), so hey.

@guntam sane people either pay when they're interested or don't when they're not. I just expressed my personal "meh" for this month's lineup, but that didn't stop me from extending the sub for another year (a mailed discount code was welcome, too), and I barely even use multiplayer. For me, PS+ is about cloud saves and maintaining access to a massive library of offerings I enjoy AND have the ability to play, including Vita classics like Grand Kingdom and Zero Time Dilemma. When it comes to PS4, the control scheme gambles of the past pretty much discouraged me from buying games for it at all, so PS+ is the bulk of my library over there, including [semi]comfortable experiences like Concrete Genie, Greedfall, Just Cause 4, Uncharted and TLoU... all of which are still in my backlog. I have enough reason to keep subscribing; if I didn't, the rational thing would be to quit, not raise cain about it online. A business offer that doesn't or no longer meet a consumer's demand is nothing extraordinary and nothing apocalyptic.

Press F. Fanblog sphere apologists may spin narratives about sparse output and production chaos in the recent years, but even those are questions to ask the management of a multimillionaire media corporation, not quite the devs themselves who are responsible for some of the most Nintendoesquely authentic that PlayStation brand has ever been. Commercial success is also only that much of an argument when others manage to print money by way of a turnip sale simulator. They weren't alone, and the figurative pressure is all on the likes of Pixelopus and Media Molecule now, but this IS an end of an era, as well as potential limbo for many prized fictionverses and a gaping hole in the platform's talent bank. When Neverland of Rune Factory fame went bust, Marvelous stepped in to shelter the devs and is reaping tangible rewards with RF5 now; the people behind Gravity Rush, Shadow of Colossus etc, from what I hear, are all third party and somewhere else now. ¯(ツ)/¯

Except for ones that aren't. And the ones you can't use on your Vita (barring Henkaku country) unless you also happen to own a PS3 remain a bit of a troll.😅

But like I said, at least statements like these seem to further prolong Sony's commitment to [what still remains of] Vita store proper.

I have a half mind to start a petition to cancel PlayStation fans. Granted, that's my 24/7 half mind about all fans in existence, myself included, but nonetheless.

"...as opposed to your own PS5"

gets dogpiled

The year is 2021 AD and announcements of absent announcements have really become a thing. Congratulations, fellow fans, the world has acknowledged us as INCAPABLE of responsible hype.

More indifferent this month, but I might try Star Wars Squadrons sometime. Although it probably involves a lot of shooting, so you can guess my usual concerns by now.

No comment - even my snark levels fail me.

Now available again, I don't know the previous price but it's peculiarly 1429 RUB now as opposed to Vita's usual 2800-something (not "affected" by the accidental giveaway but intact all this time on Store app instead - and the DLC was still free on the platform). While you still won't catch me investing in a home version while a portable one is available, the seeming price drop is nice... yet the seeming price glitches during its implementation and the necessity to temporarily delist the entire page during a fix are perplexing.

So does it mean some belatedly notified development projects still have to be cancelled or rushed or are they at least allowing to finish everything that's already been in the works? 🤔

@Boucho11 Liberation? It's also on Switch (bundled with AC3), but if you don't have one or prefer it here, that's easily one of the most memorable games on the platform. I haven't even played much despite it being among my first Vita purchases (still on the first game in the respective binge), but what I've experienced already had quite an impression on me. And the game can also boast being an Assassin's Creed with a female protagonist before it was cool.😄

No, but I finally got the first Resident Evil on Switch.

In PlayStation land, I'll be also turning towards the original platform RE2 and RE3 first when the time comes.... or so I thought until the other day before finding that RE2 seems to have sailed back into pirate waters on my part. Turns out, the game is still not properly marked to appear on Vita's PSS and the web version used to be the only way to buy it here! 😕 At least RE3 is there while 4-6 and 0 are on Switch. Time will tell about RE7, but the demo didn't seem too conflicting with Vita controls in RP, so...

I would have naturally welcomed Wreckfest on PS4 instead - vehicle games are my thing, - but yet again, would it even control well on Vita? Enough of that riddle to come with Battlefield V - the games tend to feature a lot of FPS and vehicles, i.e. pretty fun unless the control scheme makes sure it isn't.

Not well-versed on Stranded Deep and up to my neck in survivals and other gradual builders on Switch as it is, but it's still a genre I particularly welcome, so hey. In other words, not much hype about this month for various personal reasons, but nothing to complain about either.

Code already expired. Not sure how many hours the studio's SMM believes days to have, but I guess that day is really gone in their opinion. Oh well.

@Agramonte except for the range of ability to actually play all those games. ¯(ツ)/¯

It's easy to enter a testing phase in select countries. The real challenge is to exit it... if PS Now is any indication.😅

I certainly can't picture myself streaming a movie from PS4 to Vita. Not that the former's VOD apps even allow that to begin with.

Hilarious to see the fandom pat its own head in the comments when Sony's "reconsideration" is almost certain to stem from the feedback of the people entitled to criticizing the previous decision most - the devs and publishers, including everyone caught completely off guard mid-development on the Vita front. Nonetheless, good news. Gotta wonder if this will make Atlus and some others restore the recent advance bailouts like Utawarerumono and Dungeon Travelers 2 or if they're not looking back now... but until/unless the titles in question show up on Switch, I'll strongly hope for the former. In any case, that's quite a wallet emergency alleviated on my part, but it remains a wake-up call as far as a good bunch of Vita-compatible games are concerned. Still planning some investment come July (and possibly May), regardless of sales.

To be fair, let's be honest - the moment PS4 store AND servers ever go down in their legitimate entirety, how many people would remain morally or pragmatically inhibited from putting a CFW on their PS4s? What the digital age means for that part of a console's life is that all the games and updates don't even need a dumping process anymore.😅

For a moment I thought the article was claiming that the subscription items would no longer autorestore after a lapse. Geez.