No such thing as a free launch
Fire fights utilise similar ideas, for instance, Sixaxis' motion detection is used when zoomed in to snipe at unsuspecting goons.
Raise the rafters
Super Stardust Delta and Frobisher Says! both demonstrate how the touchpad on the back of console can be used. The former includes a minigame, in which invading meteors, alien craft and the like can be crushed between finger and thumb in an action combining both touchscreens. Frobisher Says!, a riff on Nintendo's Wario Ware, requires the user to slavishly obey the commands of cockled public school boy Frobisher: "Scratch my back," he'll whine, the required action obvious.
Super Stardust dust-up
Other demos were a mix of old franchises: Resistance Burning Skies, Everybody's Golf and the new and interesting, Reality Fighters and Little Deviants being among the offerings.
Having a blast
Resistance was exactly what you might expect, benefitting hugely from those dual sticks and implementing some interesting takes on the touchscreen controls, as a means to accurately throw grenades and swing Firefighter Tom Riley’s axe at hapless chimera. Visually, it is somewhat lagging behind Uncharted, but Sony was at pains emphasise just how early these demos are, so I can forgive that for now.
Improve your Resistance...
Reality Fighters and Little Deviants both make use of Vita’s cameras, mixing gameplay with augmented reality by allowing users to map their face on to fighters, or using the user’s current surroundings as a virtual battleground. While impressive, at this stage the feeling is that they come across like tech demos.
AR, it's Reality Fighters
Verdict
PS Vita does just about everything you desire a handheld games consoel to do, and sports visuals that, thanks to the compression of pixels on the smaller screen, are nothing short of sensational.
Sony is clearly gambling on the draw of such power in the face of competition from Nintendo, Apple and Android. But there's the question of pricing. Without discounts, consumers will be looking at day-one outlays of upwards of £400 - surely enough to make even the most ardent Sony fan wince, and making a 3DS-style early days price reduction inevitable. Food for thought. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Not allowed to comment it seems
Commentards are very welcome to slag each other off and call each other names, but I will reject comments that make personal attacks on the site and/or its staff.
Don't like that? Tough. This is not a democracy. There are no first amendment rights.
Anyone who dislikes this is very welcome to delete their El Reg and/or Reg Hardware bookmark(s), and no further correspondence will be entered into, etc, etc.
Bespoke
"A bespoke memory stick - meaning my existing Pro Duo is not supported?"
Aye, the PS Vita Card. Expected costs to be around 3x the cost of regular flash. Just as Sony were phasing out the Memory Stick from their camera ranges, they go and fire the shotgun into the other foot.
£400?
Where on earth did you get that price form? The console itself - even the high end 3G enabled version - is ony £270 pre-order on Amazon. So unless you're planning to buy every single game and accessory available at launch, I don't know where you're getting the extra 50% on the bill from.
WIFI Vita, basic memory card and one game - I suspect you'll be able to get for not more than £300. Still a fair lump of cash by anybody's margin, but let's be a little more realistic eh?
I get the point you're making, but
The thing is, although the business models are different, it doesn't mean that the statement "smartphone gaming will be the death of dedicated mobile gaming systems" is necessarily invalid.
For a dedicated game system to be successful, whether mobile or not, you generally need tens of millions of global unit sales, with strong software attach rates, and a life cycle of say 5-7 years.
If either the 3DS or the Vita do not achieve these goals, and if part of the reason they do not achieve these goals is due to competition (based on people actually buying games at whatever price) from smartphones, then yes, smartphone gaming has at least contributed to the death of mobile gaming systems.
FWIW I don't think there are enough gamers out there willing to fork out hundreds of pounds for a new system and multiple games that cost £30 and up anymore, now that you can get mobile gaming fixes from free and up on smartphones. That said I'll be getting one of these, just like I imported my PSP. How many of me are there?
