Ryu’s Musing – The PS Vita and Sony’s (supposed) Support

imagesI’m going to be honest here, I’m angry, which means this post will be a bit ranty. Though i think you’ll agree with good reason. This post will cover two things, firstly my new PS Vita, and the abysmal thing called Sony Support

Lets start with the good, my Vita is awesome. I purchased the console in the Black OP’s bundle, purely cause it came with the game and a 4GB card. but it was more cause it was the same price as the unit on it’s own. I also at the same time ordered Persona 4 Golden, Uncharted, Virtues Last Reward and Dungeon Hunter. Promptly my life went into pause mode and it got swallowed up. Frankly it’s probably the best purchase I’ve made beside my laptop.

So lets talk about the unit itself, it does feel like the PSP, I’ve played on one of those and i don’t see any major differences. The way the system works is amazing, with no moving parts as it’s all flash card based, it’s battery life is significantly improved…supposedly. For me this is a bit of a lie, as I’ve gotten around 3 hours or so out of a single charge, which is about what you got out of a PSP apparently. It has a front and back camera, though I’ve no idea why, it’s not like you’re going to take photo’s or shoot a movie with your Vita.  On the left side you’ve got the D-Pad and left analogue stick, with the PS button underneath. This button takes you back to the main screens. The right has the action buttons, camera, analogue stick, the pause and start buttons. The action keys are a bit small IMO, as someone who has big hands i find it hard to double hit the keys at times.

The screen is big, and it looks it. It’s a touch screen of course, which feels really gimmicky TBH. The back has a back touch pad, which is even more gimmicky than the screen. I’ve yet to use it for anything, other than in Black Op’s where it feels like you need to be an octopus to hit everything. The firmware feels a lot like a clone of android, using multiple ‘home screens’ as holders for your apps and games.

the games themselves run pretty damn well. Of the ones I’ve played so far I’ve been fairly impressed. In fact everything bar Dungeon Hunter has ran smoothly. Dungeon Hunter seems to suffer from some rather severe issue that are in the game’s code rather than the console.

Graphically I’ve been impressed, some games look awesome. Others not so much, I picked up some PS1 and 2 games on the store and they look bad, more than you would expected with a dated game.

Persona 4: Golden
Persona 4: Golden

The cards for the game are titchy, they’re essentially SD cards, so don’t keep them in your pocket or you’ll lose them. This is one of the issues with the Vita, Sony decided to force people to use their proprietary cards for storage. So while the consoles uses a micro-SD card, you can’t just buy a micro-SD. You have have to use one that’s Sony created, as a result they are significantly more expensive. A 32GB standard card i can get for £30, the Sony one was £74.99, over double the cost.

The build is not so great as well, which is disappointing in a handheld. It’s supposed to be designed and built for use outside, however it clearly isn’t.  As a cost saving feature they used glass for the screen, as a result it can and does frequently get hot and cracks. My own which is less than two months, has a crack in the screen caused by this. Sony however refuse to accept it as an issue covered by the warranty and thus charge you a small fortune to fix a new screen for you. this is despite the issue being a long touted one.

It also comes with a USB lead, and a charging box. The idea being you can connect the lead to the box and charge through the mains, or connect it to the PC and charge it that way. The problem here of course is that both leads are pathetically small. If you’re expecting to use your Vita while it’s charging, you can forget it; unless you have an outlet right next to the chair. Even the USB lead is so small it’s nigh on unusable for anything other than charging.

The Vita also has an annoying issue of turning down the brightness when you don’t do anything for a minute. Which when you’re playing a game is damn annoying. Especially when that game is a JRPG with cut-scenes. As a result of this you can be watching a nice vibrant screen one minute, then it goes dark and dull. Unfortunately, while you can stop it auto shutting down, you can’t turn off the auto dim. According to Sony it’s a power saving option, though it isn’t an option since you can’t turn it off. Even when it’s charging/connected to the mains.

Nothing beats a classic JRPG
Nothing beats a classic JRPG

The game selection you can buy for this console isn’t that great. However if you look to use it as an emulator, you can have PS1 and PS2 games on there. So while it may not have the hottest new game, you can relive your old Final Fantasy urges. Hopefully we’ll get more JRPG’s and stuff on here in the future.

Frankly the system is awesome, and i can highly recommend it.

Onto the support side of things. This is going to get ugly.  I’ve used a lot of marketplaces over the years, Steam, Origin Google Play, Apple, and while all have their issues they all have spent time making sure that the payment scheme is painless. Sony however seem to be the opposite, they aren’t happy unless they’ve made your life a living hell.

Here’s a list of my experiences with them.

Day one of owning my Vita i setup my payment stuff and tried to buy the Persona Series. This was on special offer for over half price. I felt i could play 1-4 in order and fully enjoy the series. However that wasn’t the case. I got error after error, and ultimately got locked out of my own account.

My own bank blocked Sony from my card, something I’ve never had before, for suspected fraud. This was the way it went for near two weeks, with Sony blaming my bank and my bank of course blaming Sony. Turns out my bank was right and it was Sony’s fault.

EVERY time i went to buy something it was error after error after error. Finally today i was able to buy the Persona games, then it blocked me again, which means I’m now not able to buy the other games i wanted (including Altier Totori Plus). Once again they’re blaming my bank, who are saying it’s Sony. I know who I’m more likely to believe.

This apparently is a common problem with Sony, their handling of card payments is a nightmare. However you can get round it using the PSN Cards, which work flawlessly apparently. This to me says ‘cash grab’. The reason being you have little control over how much you add to your account. for example my current order is £47, but to buy it with PSN cards i need to buy £50 worth of cards. Which means Sony gets a hold of £3 for free. Not a lot you might say, but when you consider it in the thousands, then it becomes a bit of a worry.

The support is also fractured, blaming each other for their problems rather than trying to resolve issues.

So, overall my experience with Sony is not good. While i love my Vita i do wish the support side was better