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The Official PS Vita Thread!


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The PS Vita is an absolute GEM of a system that I wish I had bought far sooner. Though it doesn't have the library of the PSP, it does have some very high quality titles, both AAA, western, and JRPG's in abundance. The purpose of this thread is to discuss all things VITA while it is still alive and beyond. Tell us about your favorite carts, limited releases, imports, and digital games. Tell us about your hacks and fun Vita projects. I for one am building my library now and hoping to import some carts that were never released stateside. Share the VITA love people!!

 

Some basic info on the system:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Vita

 

20 games that defined the system:

 

 

Metal Jesus Buying Guide for Vita

 

 

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Lack of love for the VITA is a shame, I love the little bugger... I tend to do most of my RPG'ing now on the VITA, I love it is linked into Trophies and now and then you find a gem like Vostok Inc that just blows your mind on how much fun games can be... Boxes are so sweet also, shame they dont have little cute manuals...

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Though it doesn't have the library of the PSP

 

What are you talking about, it has a good chunk of the psp's library. ;)

 

In addition to it's own, the PS1, and various digital minis that worked on it, the psp, and the ps3.

 

The system, ultimately, was fine. Sony just refused to properly market it.

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When I first bought my Vita, I was blown away by it. Everything about it was just a step above anything I'd seen in a handheld before; the graphics, the controls, the overall design and feel of the system, the build quality. It's just about perfect as a handheld, IMO. I even like it better than the Switch in many ways, which I don't like as a handheld nearly as much as some people do (too big and has poor battery life).

 

I don't have nearly enough games for it but that'll change over time as the prices come down. I plan to keep collecting for it. I have not bought any of the many, many PS store games available for it because I'm afraid they will stop working at some point, but I will keep buying physical games.

 

The only thing I don't like about the system is the weirdly long load times in a lot of games. It often takes longer to load than the PSP, and the PSP used optical discs.

 

My unit is one of the Japanese white and green systems, which I still think looks better than it should.

 

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Same here Space Cadet, was REALLY blown away by mine. Seems to be leagues ahead of the 3DS, and almost as good as the Switch, which is amazing considering it came out 5+ years ago now.

 

I downloaded tXk last night and it is a face melter. May have to get a PS4 just to play Tempest 4000 now if the bar is that high...

 

Not a lot of the Limited Run Games are really my style, but a few on Vita are must haves for me, and planning to import some carts as well that were digital only stateside, like Tetris and Resident Evil Revelations 2.

 

My collection so far is: Uncharted, Killzone, and Sonic Racing. Have tXk digital, and will be downloading Another World very soon..

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The Vita is one of my favorite systems. I have an OLED and a LCD model with over 100 physical games. It's the perfect size for a portable and is several times more powerful than a 3DS. It's hard to go from a Vita (especially the beautiful OLED screen) to a 3DS. They look like they are from different generations.

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The system, ultimately, was fine. Sony just refused to properly market it.

 

It bugs me when people say this ... as if Sony doesn't know how to market electronics and video games, something they've been doing for longer than many "gamers" have been alive.

 

I agree that the system was (is) great, it's well designed, and supported by a huge back catalog, some great exclusives, and a slew of indies. It failed to thrive because it came along when mobile was super strong. Sony "refused to properly market it" because it wasn't selling -- despite their big marketing push in the early days.

 

Many of Vita's ideas, like PSTV for big screen play, are right out of the Switch playbook, but it was always the third pillar, never up front like the Switch is for Nintendo. I also wish the Switch were a little more portable, too. Vita is a pretty great form factor.

 

The other things that kill Vita for me are the non-standard charging cables, and the proprietary memory cards. I have more Vita-compatible software than I can fit on a 64GB memory stick, but if they used microSD like everyone else, I would probably still be buying and playing games on mine. It's in a drawer but seeing TT's enthusiasm almost makes me want to take it out, dust it off, play some Tempest.

 

I downloaded tXk last night and it is a face melter. May have to get a PS4 just to play Tempest 4000 now if the bar is that high...

 

I have a feeling PS4 T4K is going to be pretty similar ... :-) I got a PSTV pretty much just to play that and a few PSP games on the big screen. Those are probably still really cheap if you can find one. It's a neat little console and it's fun to imagine an alternate universe where that was the main Playstation instead of a weird accessory.

 

Cosmic Star Heroine just came out for Vita, it's a western-designed, JRPG style game with a slick SNES graphic style. Pretty much a perfect candidate for Vita play if I've ever seen one.

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I have a feeling PS4 T4K is going to be pretty similar ... :-) I got a PSTV pretty much just to play that and a few PSP games on the big screen. Those are probably still really cheap if you can find one. It's a neat little console and it's fun to imagine an alternate universe where that was the main Playstation instead of a weird accessory.

I have a PSTV, it's great in concept, but it feels like they half-assed the implementation. They took a vita and engineered it just enough to work on TV with a dualshock, but didn't go the extra-mile to make it really work well as a micro-console. As a result there are many Vita games that don't work on it, usually due to controller mapping issues. Worse, the official Sony whitelist is incomplete. There are many games that work on the PSTV that are not on the whitelist. And popular apps like Netflix and youtube don't work on the PSTV even though they work on the Vita. Probably Sony refused to pay a fee for it or something.

 

It feels more like a hack than something that is up to Sony's quality standards. Maybe that's why they dumped them on the market cheap with little fanfare.

 

I bought mine for PS4 remote play mostly, but it's also a good tiny microconsole to take on business trips and hook to the hotel TV

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Compatibility with Vita in general is a bit of a CF, not unlike the Xbox line. I get why they can't make touch games work on the big screen, but it seems mean to withhold Wipeout for that reason.

 

I like this compatibility list from Cheapassgamer, maybe it will help someone in this thread.

https://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/281768-complete-list-of-pspminispsone-games-playable-on-vita/page-1

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Here's the compatibility list I refer to often as a owner of a North American PSTV, without a Vita handheld.

 

http://www.reviews2go.com/playstation-tv-compatible-games-north-america/

 

My biggest complaints are memory card prices, the failure to support all PSP compatible downloads, and Sony's failure to patch some of their flagship Vita releases to enable PSTV compatibility (Uncharted and Resistance: Burning Skies are two I'd of liked to have been able to check out).

 

And it's foolish that Vita games that are fully playable with regular controls aren't automatically supported by default. Hasn't affected me much, but I did get burned when I bought F1 2011. This game is perhaps unique in the Vita library in offering PSTV compatibility only with the digital version. Codemasters and/or Sony screwed up and apparently forgot that a retail edition also existed.

 

I didn't discover that important detail until after I had bought a retail copy.

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I enjoy my vita but two things were really issues for me:

 

  1. Touch screen for the other L/R buttons.
  2. That damn memory card combined with the giant pretty games was a rough move.

Both felt like total Sony moves and knocked it down a peg from great to pretty good for me. Lately I've enjoyed it as a remote play machine and I ordered the hori grip that should address button mapping issues for some configurations if the reviews are anything to go by.

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I agree that the system was (is) great, it's well designed, and supported by a huge back catalog, some great exclusives, and a slew of indies. It failed to thrive because it came along when mobile was super strong. Sony "refused to properly market it" because it wasn't selling -- despite their big marketing push in the early days.

 

Sorry, can't agree with you there given that the 3DS was selling like hotcakes during the same period. Sony's ads sucked. Sony overpricing the memory cards sucked HARD. Sony then pushing the digital a LOT harder than the physical made that HARDER.

 

Sony CAN market electronics. The PS1 and PS2 show that. The fact that the PS3 was able to finally catch on despite their original plans even shows that. (As for the PS4 beating the Xbone 2-to-1, I'm more willing to say Microsoft's actions helped accomplish that more than Sony's actions ;))

 

So with all that success, the fact that they couldn't make the Vita sell better shows they weren't trying. The only reason I picked up my Vita was because I actually won a little bit of money which helped me purchase a memory card. So I got a memory card "Free". But I'm still pissed to this day that the largest memory card I could find in stores anywhere, even back then, was 16GB for 40-50 bucks. Plus tax. Now that that 16GBs are filled up, guess what I don't buy from Sony anymore? Digital. Because 1. I can't find any vita memory cards to add, even if I wanted to (I don't buy online much), and I'm not too interested in swapping out memory cards to find out which game is on which, assuming the Vita even allows you to do that. (I'm kinda sure it does, but regardless, I'm not interested in doing so with those microscopic cards that are easy to lose.)

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By contrast to this, consider the Switch. Nintendo's pushing digital a lot as well for it, but at the very least they let the Switch use standard micro-sds, which are a lot cheaper by the GB. I picked up a 128gb card for the Switch because like the Vita I ain't going to be screwing around with swapping the card out. But thanks to the relatively much cheaper storage, Nintendo can probably expect to see me buy from them throughout the life of the console without me running too much of a risk of running out of space.

 

I'm willing to bet the expensive and hard to find storage for the Vita is probably why it wasn't selling even when Sony was pushing it. And the prices on those cards never did go down - if anything they went up.

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I'm willing to bet the expensive and hard to find storage for the Vita is probably why it wasn't selling even when Sony was pushing it. And the prices on those cards never did go down - if anything they went up.

 

Eh... the memory card thing definitely didn't help, but I haven't even come close to maxing out my 16GB card in my Vita, and I doubt I will ever even halfway fill up the 64GB card in my Switch. Downloaded games on proprietary consoles don't interest me, because they're basically rentals that can be taken away at any time. (Look at what Nintendo is doing to WiiWare games on the Wii U - they've already stated that they will take away the ability to re-download them "at some point".) The only games I care about are physical games. That goes for Switch as well as PS Vita.

 

I'd argue that the cost of having to re-buy all the games you filled up your memory card with "at some point" probably far outweighs the cost of any memory card itself.

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Eh... the memory card thing definitely didn't help, but I haven't even come close to maxing out my 16GB card in my Vita, and I doubt I will ever even halfway fill up the 64GB card in my Switch. Downloaded games on proprietary consoles don't interest me, because they're basically rentals that can be taken away at any time. (Look at what Nintendo is doing to WiiWare games on the Wii U - they've already stated that they will take away the ability to re-download them "at some point".) The only games I care about are physical games. That goes for Switch as well as PS Vita.

 

I'd argue that the cost of having to re-buy all the games you filled up your memory card with "at some point" probably far outweighs the cost of any memory card itself.

 

And in this case, it probably means you're not getting all that much out of your Vita anyway given that the vast majority of titles on the system are digital only. I'm resistant to getting digital only myself on these systems, but I'll buy up things on sale so long as it's pretty cheap and I still have room to comfortably load it on the system. When you get into a flash sale and you're able to pick up a bunch of older titles you either liked on the PS1, or PSP and would like to pick it up again for (in some cases literally) a dollar, I'm down with that. I do try to get physical copies where possible still, although I do have a few games on the Vita that I own both digitally and physically. The physical copy so I know I'll have it around if I ever need to get a new Vita after Sony axes off total support for it, but the digital copy I picked up for cheap in a flash sale for convenience.

 

Anyone getting into digital downloads on locked down consoles should at least understand that eventually you're not going to be able to redownload the things anymore eventually. (And I'm sure there are some people still today that believe that will never happen on some consoles.) I know I do, and that's why I buy things at prices that reflect that reality. And incidentally that's why I'm buying extremely little on the PS4 digitally this generation - as even with flash sales, the prices are WAY above anything I'd be tempted to consider.

 

Also, when it comes to the Vita in particular, there's not going to be any "rebuying all these games" to worry about since they just aren't available on physical media in many cases.

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And in this case, it probably means you're not getting all that much out of your Vita anyway given that the vast majority of titles on the system are digital only. I'm resistant to getting digital only myself on these systems, but I'll buy up things on sale so long as it's pretty cheap and I still have room to comfortably load it on the system. When you get into a flash sale and you're able to pick up a bunch of older titles you either liked on the PS1, or PSP and would like to pick it up again for (in some cases literally) a dollar, I'm down with that. I do try to get physical copies where possible still, although I do have a few games on the Vita that I own both digitally and physically. The physical copy so I know I'll have it around if I ever need to get a new Vita after Sony axes off total support for it, but the digital copy I picked up for cheap in a flash sale for convenience.

 

Anyone getting into digital downloads on locked down consoles should at least understand that eventually you're not going to be able to redownload the things anymore eventually. (And I'm sure there are some people still today that believe that will never happen on some consoles.) I know I do, and that's why I buy things at prices that reflect that reality. And incidentally that's why I'm buying extremely little on the PS4 digitally this generation - as even with flash sales, the prices are WAY above anything I'd be tempted to consider.

 

Also, when it comes to the Vita in particular, there's not going to be any "rebuying all these games" to worry about since they just aren't available on physical media in many cases.

Atleast you can back the games up on a PC or PS3 though.

 

A lot of digital only games have been released through several different companies too thankfully.

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