Playstation Vita thread

[ejamer]

I got a PlayStation TV recently so that I can stream Vita games. Pretty nice. That thing must have flopped hard considering it was around $40 new.

Flopped incredibly hard, and not entirely unfairly.

• Memory cards for Vita (and hence, for PSTV) have always been ridiculously expensive.
• Compatibility with Vita games is fairly low, and there are also some PSP/PSOne games that are blocked from running on the device without any clear reason why.
• Finally, there is very poor support for streaming video. Why can't Netflix (or other major services) run on the device? Seemed like a no-brainer, but just never happened.

All of that said, I still think it's a nice little piece of kit and am glad to own one.

One comment: if you haven't already updated your firmware, it might be worth checking to see if the email hack still works. That hack allowed you to remove the internal whitelist that restricts which games/applications will run on the system - giving you much more functionality from the console.

[ZenErik]

Hmm. I already updated. tbh I mostly got it to play Project Diva X on a larger screen since the PS4 version isn't out yet. That and because you can stream with the PlayStation TV without any special modding that I would assume the Vita requires. Not really intending on trying to watch things via Netflix with it though it'd be nice if that worked.

[Exhuminator]

That and because you can stream with the PlayStation TV without any special modding that I would assume the Vita requires.

If you mean streaming say Netflix to Vita, there's a Vita app for that. If you mean streaming Netflix from Vita to your HDTV, eh not so much. But there are dedicated streaming boxes for this purpose on Amazon that cost less than a PSTV does.

[ZenErik]

I mean streaming games to things like Twitch via capture card. Given that the PSTV has an HDMI output it's very easy to do. The Vita lacks that.

[Sarge]

Yeah, the PSTV is incredibly flawed. I spent some of the last week doing all the prep for hacking the system. So now I'm sitting there with TN-V on it, but I still need to do a hack with TN-X.

Anyway, a list of ridiculous things:

1) No Netflix. Yeah, that's not gonna help, Sony.
2) Way too many incompatible games. Part of this is because they shoehorned in motion controls, but here's the thing: There's this controller called a DualShock 4, and it has a touch pad, and it can be used with the system!
3) It's a pain to transfer games to it. To be fair, the Vita has the same issue, but at least you can hook up a USB cable to a PS3 or PC to speed things along. Here? Nope, gotta do it over Ethernet or wifi.
4) And talking about shared issues... those blasted memory cards are too expensive. The only reason I have a 16GB card is that one floated through my local Dirt Cheap for like $5. I should have bought more of them!

Still, it's nice that I can play some of my games on the big screen, and PSP stuff upscaled looks far nicer than the PSP/component cable solution.

[Exhuminator]

and PSP stuff upscaled looks far nicer than the PSP/component cable solution.

I'd been planning to use PPSSPP for this, but a PSTV wouldn't be a bad idea... depending on how hard it is to do. Realistically, how difficult is it to hack a PSTV to receive PSP ISOs* and play them on an HDTV? How time consuming is the process?


*That one ripped from their legit PSP UMDs of course.

[Sarge]

Pretty time-consuming, actually. I dumped several hours into finally getting the process right, and then getting the ISOs actually on the system has its own set of issues. I did it because I generally enjoy hacking around with that kind of stuff, but it's a long, convoluted process, and many of the tutorials are still not quite detailed enough for my tastes.

I figure, all told, it took me... five hours between the hacks and figuring out the hoops on the transfer? Most of my time spent was fighting with getting my backups to copy over and having them fail at the last bit. Turns out you need to download directly to a PS3 if you're copying over legit stuff, and copy from there. And it can't be a backup from the Vita you made to the PS3, it needs to be a direct PSN download.

Also, I'll note that if you use the QCMA software (a modified version of Sony's management software) for the transfer, you'll still need to rename your ISOs to something different, like EBOOT.PBP, and then name them back, or it'll just ignore the transfer, despite spending all that time trying to copy it over. You can also try to install a PSP FTP program, but transfers using that were really slow with my setup, like 500KB/s.

[JoeAwesome]

Yeah, the PSTV is incredibly flawed. I spent some of the last week doing all the prep for hacking the system. So now I'm sitting there with TN-V on it, but I still need to do a hack with TN-X.

Anyway, a list of ridiculous things:

1) No Netflix. Yeah, that's not gonna help, Sony.
2) Way too many incompatible games. Part of this is because they shoehorned in motion controls, but here's the thing: There's this controller called a DualShock 4, and it has a touch pad, and it can be used with the system!
3) It's a pain to transfer games to it. To be fair, the Vita has the same issue, but at least you can hook up a USB cable to a PS3 or PC to speed things along. Here? Nope, gotta do it over Ethernet or wifi.
4) And talking about shared issues... those blasted memory cards are too expensive. The only reason I have a 16GB card is that one floated through my local Dirt Cheap for like $5. I should have bought more of them!

Still, it's nice that I can play some of my games on the big screen, and PSP stuff upscaled looks far nicer than the PSP/component cable solution.

1) Netflix didn't want to pay the license for the PSTV.
2) Define "way too many" out of the entire library of Vita games (not PSP/PS1). People are hung up on the games that don't work without a hack. PS4 pad wouldn't solve all of the issues.
3) I can't deny this, though.
4) Or this. Memory cards are crazy priced, but with management and/or a one time investment of a good enough card size for you, it's easy to solve.

[Sarge]

"Way too many" for me is "over half my games". Even stuff that should technically work without touchscreen, like The Wolf Among Us, won't play.

The DS4 should resolve issues for most of the games. They also have a touchscreen emulation feature that, while great, could serve as a workaround, but many games still just won't run. It's a dead system now, anyway, I wish Sony would just update the whitelist and just let it be the Wild West out there.

I actually didn't know that it was a licensing thing with Netflix. I always just assumed it was more a certification thing with the app, and that Netflix didn't want to jump through those hoops. And I can't blame 'em... but Sony should have had something in place to alleviate those concerns.

I don't think it's a bad piece of kit, it's just really hamstrung compared to the actual handheld, and that's what stings. I'm certainly not mad about picking one up; a PSTV, DS3, and 8GB memory card for $30 is hard to beat. But it also probably makes me more willing to criticize it since I don't have much money invested in it.

[JoeAwesome]

"Way too many" for me is "over half my games". Even stuff that should technically work without touchscreen, like The Wolf Among Us, won't play.

The DS4 should resolve issues for most of the games. They also have a touchscreen emulation feature that, while great, could serve as a workaround, but many games still just won't run. It's a dead system now, anyway, I wish Sony would just update the whitelist and just let it be the Wild West out there.

I actually didn't know that it was a licensing thing with Netflix. I always just assumed it was more a certification thing with the app, and that Netflix didn't want to jump through those hoops. And I can't blame 'em... but Sony should have had something in place to alleviate those concerns.

I don't think it's a bad piece of kit, it's just really hamstrung compared to the actual handheld, and that's what stings. I'm certainly not mad about picking one up; a PSTV, DS3, and 8GB memory card for $30 is hard to beat. But it also probably makes me more willing to criticize it since I don't have much money invested in it.

Licensing/Certification. It's all the same. Sony charges twice (Vita and TV), and some didn't bite. Konami being the biggest one, gamewise, imo.

That I didn't invest much into the system itself makes me want to criticize it less, though.